Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 167–185
review essays
About Some Dissertations Devoted to the Lithuanian National Movement Defended at Foreign Educational Institutions 1
Darius Staliūnas
Over the recent decades in Western Europe and the United States, more than one doctoral dissertation connected in one way or another with the subject of Lithuanian nationalism (the National Movement) has been defended 2. Some of these studies are important not only to foreign researchers who do not know the Lithuanian language, but also to Lithuanian scholars. Some of these theses are serious academic studies, it is true, on fairly narrow topics. 3 Perhaps the strongest work was produced and defended at Brandeis University 4, by Nerijus Udrėnas, who analysed how the modern Lithuanian identity is emerging and changing 5. It is based on the premise
1 This article was printed in the Lithuanian language in: Archivum Lithuanicum 14 (2012), pp. 373–392. 2 N. Ūdrėnas, Book, Bread, Cross, and Whip: the Construction of Lithuanian Identity in Imperial Russia, Unpubl. Doctoral Dissertation (Brandeis University, 2000); V. Krapauskas, Nationalism and Historiography: The Case of Nineeteenth- Century Lithuanian Historicism (Boulder, co.: 2000); L. Eriksonas, National He- roes and National Identities: Scotland, Norway and Lithuania (Brussels, 2004); A. Janužytė, Historians as Nation State-Builders: the Formation of Lithuanian University 1904–1922, academic dissertation, series: Studies in European Societies and Politics: Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence (Tampere, 2005)
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The dissertation by Balkelis was published initially in English, and in 2011 a translation appeared in the Lithuanian language. One has to say that both versions of the book are written in fluent language. The Lithuanian translation is essentially identical to the English version. The author only omitted the discussion of Lithuanian historiography. The book consists of seven chapters. The first presents the economic, social, political and cultural contexts of the Lithuanian National Movement. The second is devoted to the initial phase of the activities of the Lithuanian patriots. The third chapter deals with the relationship between intellectuals and peasants, the mobilisation of patriots in Vilnius. At the centre of the fourth is the 1905 revolution, with particular attention paid to the Great Seim of Vilnius. The fifth focuses on the debate about gender relations. The sixth chapter is about the post-revolutionary period, when intellectuals were mostly concerned with cultural activities. In the seventh, the author tries to determine what influence exile in Russia during the First World War had on the formation of the Lithuanian political elite.
CONCEPTUAL PROPOSITIONS In the context of Lithuanian histori- ography, Balkelis’ book is new. Unlike the frequently occurring factual or very narrow works in Lithuania, the book The Making of Modern Lithu- ania tries to provide a broader view of the Lithuanian National Movement (nationalism). Such an ambitious task should be welcomed. In the book, one can see several main subjects: the appearance of the Lithuanian secular patriotic intelligentsia and its views, the ‘delay’ of the idea of independ- Review essays 169 ence, and the spread of the national idea among the masses. Next I will take a closer look at the author’s reasoning. Balkelis believes that the emergence of patriotic intellectuals in an institutional sense is associated with Imperial Russian educational institu- tions in which Lithuanians became acquainted with different ideologies:
Thus for the members of the nascent Lithuanian intelligentsia, it was their direct exposure to the modern intellectual culture of Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw that imbued their restive student enthusiasm with modern ideas of nationalism, liberalism and socialism. Their subsequent disillusionment with the limited profes- sional prospects that the Tsarist state had to offer to them gradually turned them into political activists. Having discovered their inferior position in the ethnic, social and political structure of Russia, some of them turned to the search of their ethnic identity, national homeland and its people (p. 12). This, in principle, constructivistic interpretation is not entirely new, it has already been applied in Lithuanian historiography 6. Of course, one might wonder whether or not these individuals had adopted these ideas prior to their studies in higher education schools. Moreover, one can find in historical literature testimonies stating that the future leaders of the national movement had decided to work for the benefit of the modern Lithuanian nation while still at grammar school 7. The book gives a lot of space to the views, activities, identification and similar questions of the secular intelligentsia. In Lithuanian historio graphy, dominated by primordialism, a different view, in principle, is to be welcomed; and such or a similar constructivistic interpretation, of course, can exist. Maybe it can to some extent explain the views of the secular intelligentsia; however, any observations about part of the patriotic intel- lectuals will always give only limited information about the national elite and its influence. In this case, one cannot understand why one of the most important groups in the Lithuanian National Movement, the Catholic clergy, is ignored. At the beginning of the book Balkelis notes:
This book is largely concerned with the secular intelligenstia, while the clerical elites are only occasionally discussed as contributors or opponents to the national movement (p. xviii). However, he does not provide any arguments for this choice. One can surmise some of the author’s reasoning: the interpretation of the birth of the patriotic intelligentsia, along with Lithuanian nationalism, provided in the book cannot possibly explain the active integration into the National Movement by some Catholic intellectuals. At times, Balkelis tries to
6 V. Sirutavičius, ‘Vincas Kudirka’s programme for modernizing society and the problems of forming a national intelligentsia’, Lithuanian Historical Studies, 5 (2000), pp. 99–112. 7 D. Mačiulis, ‘Jonas Šliūpas ir lietuvių–latvių vienybės idėja’, Acta Humani- tarica Universitatis Saulensis, Mokslo darbai, 12 (2011), p. 83. 170 Review essays downplay the influence of the nationally conscious Lithuanian priests: he notes in several places that at the end of the 19th century the secular intel- ligentsia become national movement leaders, while the influence of priests decreased. In one place this change is dated ‘from the 1890s’ (p. 14), in another ‘from the mid-1880s’ (p. 28). Furthermore, the book states that the Catholic-oriented illegal Lithuanian press was primarily concerned with Catholic values rather than Lithuanisation. However, the numerous studies by Vilma Žaltauskaitė have shown that among the most important goals of these newspapers, especially Tėvynės sargas, were not only defending the Catholic Church against russification, but the spread of the ideas of modern Lithuanian nationalism in the Catholic rural community 8. The elimination of clerical intellectuals from this study is difficult to understand, especially as the author himself acknowledges the dominant role of the group in the Lithuanian National Movement in 1906–1914 (pp. 85–103) 9; but speak- ing of the practices of social disciplining, he relies on the press of other political currents, and not clerical. Likewise, writing about the debate on the role of women in the Lithuanian National Movement, he shows no interest in the publications of this ideological-political wing (pp. 69–84). Balkelis considers the declarations by Lithuanian activists, or even of political parties, in which there is mention of the creation of an independ- ent Lithuania as a ‘utopian vision’, and believes that for them it was most attractive to replace the autocratic regime with a federation together with other nations: ‘The idea of full independence (as opposed to concepts of autonomy or federation) remained an utopian vision among the Lithuanian intelligentsia before World War I’ (p. 31). At another point it is emphasised that the Lithuanian Congress (Great Vilnius Seim), which marked the culmination of the National Movement in the 1905 revolution period, formulated a very moderate political pro- gramme, which provided for the political autonomy of Lithuania in the composition of the Russian Empire (p. 59). The author points out only a few cases when Lithuanian politicians raised the idea of an independent
8 V. Žaltauskaitė, ‘Apie lietuvybės idėją kunigo Juozo Tumo-Vaižganto pažiūrose. Iki 1904 m.’, Lietuvių Atgimimo istorijos studijos (hereafter – LAIS), t. 8: Asmuo: tarp tautos ir valstybės (Vilnius, 1996), pp. 248–260; eadem, ‘Žinyčia – laikraštis apšviestesniemsiems Lietuviams’, Lituanistica, 1998, nr. 1, pp. 19–29; eadem, Lietuvos krikščioniškosios demokratijos genezė. XIX a. pab.– XX a. pr. Sociopolitinis aspektas, doctoral dissertation summary (Vilnius, 2000), p. 24, eadem, ‘Catholicism and Nationalism in the Views of the Younger Generation of Lithuanian Clergy in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentienth Centuriesʼ, Lithuanian Historical Studies, 5 (2000), pp. 113–130; eadem, ‘Dvasininkijos kartų konfliktas (Retorika ir turinys)ʼ, Darbai ir dienos, 28 (2001), pp. 243–253. 9 The press of that time wrote about the dominance of the Catholic-leaning periodicals over the secular: ‘Apžvalga 1912–1913 m.’, Vilniaus kalendorius 1914 metams (Vilnius, 1913), p. 112. Review essays 171 Lithuania, and relies on the memoirs of Kazys Grinius: ‘in our committee of varpininkai the problem of independence was rarely discussed, nor was this question of importance in our annual meetings’ (p. 31). In this sense, the Lithuanians did not differ from the other non-dominant national groups:
In this respect, the Lithuanian elite did not differ from other oppositional groups in the Russian Empire for whom the idea of a federation of peoples replacing the autocratic institutions of empire was particularly attractive (p. 31). Here, as in many other instances discussed in the book, the concepts of Western (and some current Russian) scholars stating that the Romanov Empire was not a ‘prison of nations’ as was often stated earlier are carried over; many people of other nationalities did not have any ideas of political separatism; and the idea of liberation from Russia actually appears only during the First World War. I will not discuss here whether such concepts do not have political implications. A decidedly more important question is to what extent such claims comply with the level of information in contemporary historiography? One can start from a comparative perspective, on which Balkelis relied. Let us just look at the nearest neighbours of the Lithuanians. In fact, as far as can be judged from contemporary historiography, for the Latvian and Estonian national movements, even though due to the different political regime in the Baltic provinces they obtained their mass character much earlier than the Lithuanian movement, the idea of political independence there took root only during the First World War. ‘Late’ Belarusian national- ism did not raise the idea of an independent Belarus until the Great War. 10 However, the Polish national movement had never ‘forgotten’ the idea of an independent state. Thus, really not all the national movements opposed to the empire formulated moderate political programmes. When discussing the Lithuanian National Movement, it should be noted that some form of idea of an independent state was formulated as a politi- cal goal not only in the writings of politicians individual, but also in the party programs (in the programmes of the Lithuanian Democratic Party, as well as of the Social Democrats). The first to formulate such an idea was Jonas Šliupas in 1887 in the USA; in the first decade of its activities (up to the 1905 revolution), the idea of an independent Lithuania as an aspiration was continuously recorded by the Lithuanian Social Democrats in their various documents (the goal recorded in 1896 to link a liberated Lithuania and neighbouring states with federation ties weakened, and the desire for an independent democratic Republic of Lithuania kept growing
10 See E. Gimžauskas, Baltarusių veiksnys formuojantis Lietuvos valstybei 1915–1923 m. (Vilnius, 2003). 172 Review essays stronger 11). Later, this idea appeared in the pages of Varpas, and in the LDP programme it was written: ‘A free Lithuania independent of other nations is the distant goal of our Lithuanian Democratic Party.’ Balkelis cannot completely deny the existence of an independent state as an objective of the National Movement in the Lithuanian political programmes, but he tries to downplay the phenomenon, invoking dubious arguments:
Its first political programme, drawn up by Višinskis, reflected the ideological con- fusion that prevailed in the party over its goals and major constituents. Although as its key aim the programme called for ‘Lithuania, free and independent from other nations and states’, its short-term goal was to secure ‘Lithuanian autonomy within ethnographic borders’ (p. 32). It is difficult to understand why such a phrase means ‘ideological confu- sion’. This political programme bears witness to the maturity of the party: both a long-term (independent country) and a short-term goal (autonomy in the composition of an empire) are formulated. The author tries to cre- ate the impression that the aspirations for autonomy and an independent state are like mutually exclusive political goals, although for 19th-century Lithuanian politicians they were component parts of one and the same coherent political programme. Simply put, autonomy was perceived as an ‘intermediate end’ or a step, which can be achieved under the existing political realities, and the creation of an independent state will come later, when a favourable situation develops. Which, by the way, would also be testified to by the resolution on autonomy adopted by the Lithuanian convention (Great Vilnius Seimas), which relied on historical (statehood) arguments 12 and numerous publications in the Lithuanian press:
In a word, our political ideal, an independent Lithuania, in roughly its ethnographic borders ruled by the residents themselves with a Seimas in Vilnius [...] If now from that aspect of this important moment we proclaim a demand for political autonomy for Lithuania, we are not saying that this is our ultimate goal, but think that the most convenient time has come for spreading this idea among the people, to fight for it, and that today we are not yet prepared to separate from the Russian state, but we can trust that now many can support the demand for autonomy, that this requirement is already ripe 13. Moreover, as Rimantas Miknys has aptly noted, the goal of an independ- ent state and federation ties with other countries for Lithuanian politicians
11 G. Mitrulevičius, ‘Socialdemokratai Lietuvos valstybingumo (at)kūrimo idėjos atgimimo procese (XIX a. pabaiga – 1918 m.)’, Gairės, 2008, no. 2, pp. 35–44. 12 See E. Motieka, Didysis Vilniaus Seimas (Vilnius, 1996), p. 187. 13 Demokratas [Povilas Višinskis], ‘Demokrato balsas’, Varpas, 1905, no. 9–10, pp. 90–91. Review essays 173 at that time (and also from today’s perspective) were not necessarily treated as incompatible. According to Miknys, at times, such as in the 1914 edi- tions of Varpas, that vision of a federation with other states, according to its conception, is very similar to today’s United Nations 14. The fact that Lithuanian politicians did not often consider this question or raise it publicly can be explained quite simply. Until the First World War there were no realistic possibilities for achieving independence, i.e. Russia’s political regime was strong enough to handle both political separatism and the revolutionary movements. Being pragmatic people, the leaders of the Lithuanian National Movement discussed the issues that they hoped at the time to resolve. Again, the same perception of reality did not create preconditions to proclaim, say at a Lithuanian convention, that the goal of the national movement was the creation of an independent state. It is easy to understand that the public announcement of such a programme would have triggered off a strong reaction by the Imperial government, and many of those behind the initiative would have been placed behind bars. In other words, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Lithuanian politicians rarely discussed the question of creating an independent Lithu- ania, not because the goal was foreign to them, but because they took into account the real situation. The Lithuanian political movement which in fact promoted a moderate political programme, the Christian Democrats, as has already been mentioned, did not receive the author’s attention. One also has to discuss in detail the propositions of Balkelis that the Lithuanian National Movement became a mass movement only during the First World War, only when according to Hroch, a national movement enters its final stage (Phase C of mass participation) when it attracts mass support and develops ‘a firm organisational structure extending over the whole territory’. We may encounter the first mani- festations of this during the war, none of them actually on Lithuanian soil (p. 105). Balkelis, in fact, raises an important question: what influence did the intelligentsia have on the National Movement in Lithuania villages? But instead of analysing the abundant material on these events easily found in the archives, the author is content with a discussion on the different tactics of Lithuanian parties, some of their very limited ranks, or the inability to control the peasant movement during the time of the 1905 revolution. The problem of the mobilisation of the masses, I think, is in fact rel- evant and deserves investigation. However, one can find an answer to the question raised about the influence of the intelligentsia on the revolutionary movement in Lithuania’s countryside only after analysing how the actual incidents of unrest occurred, who led them, what actions the participants in this unrest took and what goals they sought. In addition, it is essential
14 R. Miknys, Lietuvos demokratų partija 1902–1915 metais (Vilnius, 1995), p. 139. 174 Review essays to analyse other forms of public activities of the populace, and see what influence the intelligentsia had: writing petitions, establishing Lithuanian schools, and the like. Balkelis also emphasises that the intelligentsia raised national-cultural goals, but the peasants were most concerned with social and economic matters. It would be difficult to agree with both the first and the second statement. In the political programmes of the Social Democrats and the Democrats, in the newspaper publications, great attention was paid to the social and economic reorganisation of Lithuania. The goals of the peasants in 1905 could, in fact, be the subject of a separate detailed study, but one should begin with the fact that an almost universal feature of this move- ment was the expulsion of Russian civil servants and teachers, which is clear proof that the peasants had cultural and political goals. Balkelis puts a lot of effort into downplaying the value of the Lithuanian convention (the Great Vilnius Seimas). This is understandable, because it still has to serve the same purpose, to prove that the proponents of the ‘mass mobilisation argument’ are wrong. What new ideas, compared to Egidijus Motieka’s study 15, will we learn from this monograph about the Lithuanian convention that took place at the end of 1905 in Vilnius? Balkelis discusses the statement by Motieka that ‘the Lithuanian nation expressed its will already in the diet of 1905’, it ‘crowned the emergence of the modern Lithuanian nation’ (p. 59). The author of the reviewed monograph draws readers’ attention to these aspects: the name of the convention quickly began to change, in other words, the participants had to give the event more political importance; practically only ethnic Lithuanians assembled; a majority of the intellectuals came on their own initiative, while the peasants were usually elected; ‘some of the major social groups of Lithuania, for instance, the Polish-Lithuanian landown- ers’ were not represented, ‘there were no formal democratic elections of its delegates in the Lithuanian provinces’ (p. 59–60). In my opinion, here it was ‘breaking into open doors’. I do not know if anyone in modern historiography has stated that this event should be regarded as a legitimate convention for all of Lithuania (no matter how that is to be understood). As far as I understand, Motieka, in the above quotation, is talking about the ethnic (ethnolinguistic) Lithuanian nation and the expression of its will. That is, Balkelis is trying to deny the arguments about the mobilisation of the masses by invoking formalistic legal arguments. Meanwhile, in the years of the First World War, according to the author, the political project of modern Lithuania undoubtedly attracted massive support (p. 104), and the creation of the nation-state became possible because many nationally minded Lithuanians returned from exile in Russia (pp. 117, 124).
15 E. Motieka, Didysis Vilniaus Seimas. Review essays 175 In fact, even after carefully studying the material presented in the book by Balkelis, one can question the author’s generalisations. In other words, the material presented in the monograph does not support the conclusions. Let us look at what data the author presents about the Lithuanian national movement during the First World War. In the chapter ‘War, exile and Nation-building’ there are many impressive-sounding theses about the great changes in the self-identification of the masses that occurred during the war:
Indeed, displacement forced the Lithuanian refugees to re-examine their relation ships both with the empire and homeland. Their war experience bestowed on these concepts new meanings that otherwise could have been unthinkable [...] Both the collective nostalgia and the lukewarm reception that they received in Russia were key factors in shaping their responses to their new condition. However, political agitation by various political groups also played a crucial role in this process of self-identification (p. 109). In order to draw conclusions about the mass support for the national project, as is known, one would have to analyse the mass sources, show how exile changed the relationship of ordinary people with Lithuanian nationalism, and so on. Meanwhile, the author used only a few primary sources, of which the most important are the memoirs of Martynas Yčas, who headed the Lithuanian society to assist victims of the war (in this section, Yčas is cited in about one third of the references!). It is not sur- prising that Yčas placed great significance on this society and its activities, and the author of the reviewed book has done the same. In this context, a very interesting idea of the author is stated in the concluding part of the monograph:
Yet this volume hardly offers any broad conclusions except perhaps a well-known critical suggestion that traditional linear narratives of nation-making as offered by nationalists themselves, which emphasize historical continuities, the role of nationalism as ideology and the political will of the people and their leaders, are hardly sustainable (p. 121). Although the author declares war on a certain national narrative that formed a myth about the national movement, by frequently following Yčas he essentially does the same intellectual act, he tries to establish in the academic discourse one of the pictures created by the leaders of the Lithuanian National Movement. The nationalisation processes of Lithu- anian refugees during the First World War are an important and so far hardly investigated subject. However, any study of this topic should not rely on a meagre basis of sources, as in this book, but on an as far as possible greater variety of materials. The information found in the book allows us to judge the actions of the Lithuanian political elite in trying to mobilise compatriots, but no study has been carried out to show how the self-identification of these ordinary refugees changed. 176 Review essays If we compare the information in the book about the mobilisation of the masses in the 1905 revolution and the First World War, I would say that we would not find any particular qualitative leap. In the chapter on the 1905 revolution, Balkelis mentions that the majority of the peasants coming to the convention were elected or appointed by rural communi- ties: a total of about 2,000 representatives assembled; the rulings of both the convention and the Lithuanian Peasant Union created uncertainty in the countryside. Eventually, the author himself admits that this was ‘the birth of an era of mass politics in Lithuania’ (p. 68). Meanwhile, only 336 people, and most of them were intellectuals, attended the Seimas of Russia’s Lithuanians in 1917. The author places great importance on the print run of the newspaper Lietuvių balsas (17,000), but in the book one can find information saying that it was not a special phenomenon in Lithu- anian history at the beginning of the 20th century. Referring to K. Grinius, the monograph says that before the war the print runs of non-religious publications reached 13,000 to 15,000, which would account for only 21 per cent of all Lithuanian publications (p. 87). So it would follow that the total print runs of Lithuanian periodicals could have been about 70,000. In other words, prior to the war the elite had much better opportunities to communicate with the people. Speaking about the First World War, it is unlikely that we could ignore the processes taking place in Lithuania. Many former refugees-intellectuals, in fact, returned from exile after 1918, and contributed to the creation of a nation-state, but many of the mentioned people (p. 117) prior to the war also participated actively in the Lithuanian national movement, so any particular influence of the war on their national self-awareness is doubtful. In writing about refugees, there was also a certain manipulation of numbers. When writing about Lithuania during the war, the figure men- tioned for the number of people voluntarily or forcibly leaving the country is more than half a million and is based on only one source, a book by Rapolas Skipitis, published in 1961 in Chicago (p. 104). A historian, it would seem, should make greater efforts in looking for sources or studies on such important phenomena affecting such masses of people. But there is another greater problem. The author himself admits that only about half of these deportees were Lithuanians. A large part of the people deported from Lithuania were Jews evicted from border regions on the orders of the Russian army 16. Meanwhile, some of the statements by Balkelis may
16 S. Goldin, ‘Deportatsia russkoi armiei evreev iz Kovenskoi i Kurlandskoi gubernii (aprel’–mai 1915 g.)’, Evrei v meniaiushchimsia mire. Materialy 5 mezh- dunarodnoi konferentsii, Riga, 16–17 sentiabria 2003 g., ed. G. Branover, R. Ferber (Riga, 2005), pp. 260–265; idem, ‘Russkoe komandovanie i evrei vo vremia Per- voi Mirovoi voiny: prichiny formirovania negativnogo stereotipa’, Mirovoi krizis 1917–1920 godov i sud’ba vostochnoevropeiskogo evreistva, ed. O.V. Budnitskii (Moscow, 2005), pp. 29–46. E. Lor, ‘Novye dokumenty o rossiiskoi armii i evre- Review essays 177 create the impression that all of the half a million residents were ethnic Lithuanians, who became the object of the influence of the Lithuanian elite:
Yet the displacement of more than half a million Lithuanian refugees during the Great War provided a unique opportunity for the patriotic elite to mobilize them for the nationalist cause (p. 123–124). The Lithuanian political elite did not have any possibilities directly, or even indirectly, to influence the attitudes of the absolute majority of the Jews.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF BALKELIS’ MONOGRAPH WITH EARLIER STUDIES At the beginning of the book Balkelis writes that he will not try to present all aspects of the Lithuanian National Movement, but will attempt to ‘bring into the spotlight those features of the movement that earlier writers [...] had not sufficiently explored’ (p. xvii). Probably, it is most difficult to believe this statement when reading Chapter V‘The Search for National Brides: The Intelligentsia and Women’. Not only the generalisations or observations, which we read in this chapter, but also the sources relied on, are not new: almost all of this information can already be found in two dissertations written a decade earlier by Dalia Marcinkevičienė and Nerijus Udrėnas 17. However, such or a similar relationship with earlier studies by historians is noticed very frequently. We will discuss only some of them in greater detail. Writing about russification, Balkelis mentions several Western authors (Edward C. Thaden, Hans Rogger, Raymond Pearson, Theodore R. Weeks, Andreas Kappeler), who have written on this subject in recent decades. In fact, the new interpretation of the Romanov empire’s national policy, saying that the empire only at certain times and in regard to only certain non-dominant ethnic groups carried out an assimilation policy, are associ- ated with most of these names. However, over the last decade, none of these historians (with the possible exception of T.R. Weeks) has published important works on the subject. Meanwhile, authors who in the last dec- ade have published significant research relating to the imperial policy of the western edges of the empire (Leonid Gorizontov, Anna Komzolova, Alexei Miller, Mikhail Dolbilov, Henryk Głębocki) 18, are not mentioned iakh vo vremia Pervoi Mirovoi Voiny’, Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta, 2003, № 8(26), pp. 245–68. 17 D. Marcinkevičienė, Vedusiųjų visuomenė: Santuoka ir skyrybos Lietuvoje XIX amžiuje – XX amžiaus pradžioje (Vilnius, 1999), pp. 100–118; N. Ūdrėnas, Book, Bread, Cross, and Whip, pp. 449–461. 18 L. Gorizontov, Paradoksy imperskoi politiki: Poliaki v Rossii i Russkie v Pol’she (Моscow, 1999); А. Miller, «Ukrainskii vopros» v politike vlastei i rus skom obshchestvennom mnenii (vtoraia polovina XIX veka) (St Petersburg, 2000); М. Dolbilov, ‘Konstruirovanie оbrazov miatezha: Politika М.N. Мurav’eva v Litovsko-Beloruskom krae v 1863–1865 gg. kak ob’ekt istoriko-antropologicheskogo 178 Review essays in the book by Balkelis. In this context, one is not surprised either by the circumstance that works by Lithuanian researchers in the last decade are also ignored 19. Writing about the ban on traditional lettering in Lithuanian publications, Balkelis refers to works by Vytautas Merkys, Antanas Tyla and Witold Rodkiewicz. All of these authors have left a deep mark in the historical literature devoted to Russian national policies; referring to the results of their research, when writing about Russia’s policies in respect to Lithuanians, is not only possible but also necessary. However, in this case, the references to the research by Merkys or Tyla, in my understanding, are incorrect. Here the author writes that ‘the idea of the ban was introduced by Murav’ev, and the curator of the Vilna school district, I.P. Kornilov. They based their decision on the need to defend the Lithuanian-speaking peasants against a negative cultural influence of the Poles and to strengthen Russian civilization in the region’ (p. 5). Here one can understand that the Lithuanian mentioned historians hold this view. In fact, imperial bureau- crats often argued that way for the changing of letters in Lithuanian script, but the Lithuanian historians mentioned consider such reasoning to be ‘a smokescreen’. In their opinion, it is not important what the government of the empire said about its actions, is is important what it was doing, and in their opinion the goal of this policy was to russify the Lithuanians. We will mention several more well-known studies that are well known in historiography which the author of the reviewed book ‘forgets’: writing about the temperance movement, the book by Egidijus Aleksandravičius ‘is not seen’ 20; in discussing the Catholic (clerical) current in the Lithuanian analiza’, Actio nova 2000 (Моscow, 2000), pp. 338–408; idem, ‘Kul’turnaia idi- oma vozrozhdeniia Rossii kak faktor imperskoi politiki v Severo-Zapadnom krae v 1863–1865 gg.’, Ab Imperio (2001), No 1–2, pp. 227–68; A. Мiller, Zapadnye okrainy Rossiiskoi imperii (Моscow, 2006); idem, ‘Russification and the Bureau- cratic Mind in the Russian Empire’s Northwestern Region in the 1860s’, Kritika; Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 5/2, (2004), pp. 245–71; idem, ‘‘The Russifying Bureaucrats’ Vision of Catholicism: The Case of Northwestern krai after 1863’, Russia and Eastern Europe: applied ‘imperiology’, ed. A. Nowak (Warsaw, 2006), pp. 197–221; А. Komzolova, Politika samoderzhaviia v Severo- Zapadnom krae v epokhu Velikikh reform (Моscow, 2005); H. Głębocki, Fatalna sprawa. Kwestia polska w rosyjskiej myśli politycznej (1856–1866) (Kraków, 2000); idem, Kresy Imperium. Szkice i materiały do dziejów polityki Rosji wobec peryferii (XVIII–XXI wiek) (Kraków, 2006). We have mentioned here only a few of the most important works by these historians; moreover, we have included only those which were published before the appearance of the book in English by T. Balkelis. 19 A. Kulakauskas, Kova už valstiečių sielas. Caro valdžia, Lietuvos visuomenė ir pradinis švietimas XIX a. viduryje (Kaunas, 2000); Raidžių draudimo metai, comp. D. Staliūnas (Vilnius, 2004); D. Staliūnas, Making Russians. Meaning and Practice of Russification in Lithuania and Belarus after 1863 (Amsterdam/New York, 2007). 20 E. Aleksandravičius, Blaivybė Lietuvoje XIX amžiuje (Vilnius, 1990). Review essays 179 National Movement, the already mentioned studies by Vilma Žaltauskaitė are not noticed; in analysing the peripety of the activities of the Lithu- anian National Democratic Party, the study by E. Motieka and Rimantas Miknys 21 is not mentioned; in writing about the Social Democrats, the research by Arūnas Vyšniauskas and Gintaras Mitrulevičius 22. This list could be expanded significantly further.
ARCHIVAL SOURCES At the beginning of the book, it is stated that the author will base his work on ‘primary material’ as well as ‘archival documents’. In fact, in some references, archival sources are mentioned (two times it is even based on material from the Russian State Historical Archive), but the archival sources used by Balkelis have long been known and are often cited by historians. Moreover, there is no uniform system of archival references, sometimes only the archive signature is given without the title of the document (p. 132), a tradition often followed by Western and Russian scholars; in other cases, next to the signature is the title of the document (e.g. p. 138), as archive documents are usually described by Lithuanian historians. Several of the archival references are surprising. How, for example, would it be possible to find a document from references by Balkelis ‘LVIA, f. 378’ or ‘LVIA, f. 389, l. 59’ (p. 138, 142)? It is unlikely that in this place one may suspect that there was a typographical error, because we find the same references in the English and the Lithu- anian versions. At first I could not understand how it happened that two archives in Lithuania, the Lithuanian State Historical Archives and the Lithuanian Central State Archives, were ‘hiding’ under the same acronym (LVIA). The reader’s search was exacerbated by the fact that in the translation of the Lithuanian book there is no list of sources used or historiography. Only after taking in one’s hands the English text by the author was the secret revealed: in it, the funds of these two archives are put together, i.e. as if they were one and the same archive 23. How could it happen that archives in different places in Vilnius, keeping documents from different periods, were placed ‘under one roof’? It is also interesting that in the list of sources in the English version many archival and manuscript library funds are listed
21 R. Miknys, E. Motieka, ‘Tautiškoji lietuvių demokratų partija: idėjinės-po- litinės kūrimosi aplinkybės’, LAIS, 1 (Vilnius, 1990), pp. 80–126. 22 A. Vyšniauskas, ‘Lietuvos socialdemokratijos politinė transformacija 1898 metais’, LAIS, 3: Lietuvos valstybės idėja (XIX a. – XX a. pradžia) (Vilnius, 1991), pp. 67–131; G. Mitrulevičius, ‘Socialdemokratai’. 23 T. Balkelis, The Making of Modern Lithuania (London and New York, 2009), p. 153. One has to note that in the fund there are numbering errors. The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Fund is shown as no. 38, but the correct no. is 383:
Terminology. THE EMPIRICAL RELIABILITY OF THE MATERIALS PROVIDED IN THE BOOK In the work of a historian, the collection of empirical evidence, its verification, inspection and correct presentation, play a very important role. And in this regard, the reviewed book does not deserve praise. On p. 8 it is stated that ‘in Lithuania after 1863 there remained only three grammar schools – in Kaunas, Šiauliai and Vilnius’ when, in fact, after 1863 up to 1905 in the three Lithuanian provinces there were many more such training institutions. In the Kaunas province there were two boys’ state grammar schools (in Kaunas and Šiauliai), and two girls’ state grammar schools (in Kaunas and Šiauliai). In the province of Vilnius there were two state boys’ grammar schools (Vilnius I boys high school, Vilnius II boys’ grammar school), and two state girls’ grammar schools (Vilnius girls’ grammar school, and Vilnius girls’ St. Mary’s Grammar school). In the Suwalki province, there was Suwalki state grammar school for boys, Suwalki state grammar school for girls, and the Marijampolė grammar school for boys. On pp. 83–84, Balkelis writes:
The nation-building strategy to include all possible social groups as their potential supporters clashed with the need to find a specific group as its constituents. Thus, Review essays 181 despite the LDP’s pledge to promote the interests of ‘workers, farmers, small merchants, and craftsmen’, it also tried to work among peasants. For this purpose they etsablished the weekly Lietuvos ūkininkas [The Lithuanian Farmer] in 1905. It would thus follow that Balkelis had not heard about Ūkininkas, the other newspaper besides Varpas that the varpininkai published in 1890–1905 that was directed at the peasants. On p. 46 it is affirmed that Vilniaus žinios ‘gave a start to advertisement in the Lithuanian language’, although we can find that advertisement already in Aušra. On p. 47, presenting the situation at Vilniaus žinios, it is affirmed that ‘in 1904 Vileišis decided to replace the liberal editors fighting among themselves with others’ although the newspaper began to be published only in December 1904. On p. 126 it is written:
The seventh LSDP congress (1907) called the party to ‘expand its work among the Jewish workers’, to ‘publish party documents in the Jewish language’ and to seek unification of Christian and Jewish workers’ organisations. There is little evidence that these statements became anything more than revolutionary dreams of Lithuanian socialists. From historical literature, we know that in 1906–1907 the LSDP had two publications in the Yiddish language: Di arbiter shtime fun lite and Sotsialistishes flugblat, and also distributed proclamations in the language during the elections to the Second Duma 24. On the very same page it is written that ‘the Bund wanted the historical borders of 1792 and leaned to closer ties with Russia’. After reading this phrase, one can see that the Bund sought territorial autonomy of Lithuania with its 1792 (?) borders when it is well known that this party of Jews, like all other political groups ‘on Jewish Street’ gave priority to various exterritorial forms of national autonomy. At times the book provides different information about one and the same phenomenon. On p. 45 it states that in 1905 the circulation of Vilniaus žinios was more than 5,000 copies, but on p. 55 that ‘in 1905 its circula- tion grew to nearly 6,000.’
DOUBTFUL CLAIMS In addition to the empirical errors or inaccura- cies in the reviewed book, we encounter questionable or unsubstantiated statements. We will mention only a few examples. On p. 51 it is written that after the 1905 revolution there was ‘a deep socio-cultural schism’ between the intelligentsia and the peasantry. On p. 68 it is asserted that the government noticed the increased influence of the LSDP and LPS in the years of the revolution that ‘turned the fury of repression toward the left’, when ‘one could say that the Liberals and clerics did not suffer’. In my understanding, the main repressions of the government were directed
24 E. Vidmantas, Lietuvos darbininkų periodinė spauda 1895–1917 (Vilnius, 1979), pp. 63–64. 182 Review essays against the left before the revolution, during it and even later not due to their influence over the masses, but because of their programmatic goals and the radicalism of the methods used. Who should the autocratic govern- ment persecute more: the revolutionaries, using terrorist or other similar methods, or the conservative wing players advocating quiet cultural work? On p. 106 we read: ‘From the first days of war, the American Lithuanians were split between catholics, nationalists and social democrats‘. It follows then that until the war there was no political differentiation in the Lithu- anian American community. On pp. 58–59 we read:
For many of the regionalists this also meant a personal tragedy: in the course of time, they would be forced to choose between Lithuanian (for example, Römer) or Polish nationalisms (Wróblewski, Rymkiewicz). There is no doubt that the public figures mentioned here had to choose after the First World War, but they had to choose between two nation-states, Lithuania and Poland. It is difficult to guess on what basis the author ar- gues that Wróblewski and Römer had to choose one of the nationalisms. Abundant studies of the krajowcy movement 25, as well as those on the activities and self-identification of these two personalities, have not re- vealed any essential changes in their identity in that period. One can call Römer a Lithuanian nationalist only if nationalism is understood in the civic sense, i.e. as a patriot of the Lithuanian state, but it does not appear that Balkelis understands the term nationalism with this meaning. From the numerous publications on Römer, let us cite only one generalisation by R. Miknys suitable to describe both the situation in those days and in part today’s topical issues:
...considered himself a Pole of Lithuania in a linguistic cultural sense and a Li- thuanian in the civic sense, he was and remains misunderstood by both sides. 26 Thus, this thesis is a not very successful attempt to adapt certain schemes to the history of Lithuania. The problem is that Balkelis, in creat- ing historical works in this way, is not alone.
xxx
Audronė Janužytė prepared the work Historians as nation-state builders: the Formation of Lithuanian University 1904–1922. First of all, problems arise about the subject of the study. This book essentially has three parts (excluding the introductory section, which is essentially of a compilation nature): the first deals with the views of Petras Klimas and some other
25 The work of R. Miknys, Jan Jurkiewiczi, Juliusz Bardach, Jan Sawicki and others. 26 Editor’s introduction to Mykolas Römeris, Lietuva. Studija apie lietuvių tautos atgimimą, ed. R. Miknys (Vilnius, 2006), p. ix. Review essays 183 Lithuanian public figures at the beginning of the 20th century, the second describes the peripetia of the establishment of the university during the First World War and up to 1922, and the third presents aspects of the ‘international’ activities of the historians of the Lithuanian (from 1930 Vytautas Magnus) University in the interwar period. There is no clear logi- cal sequence between these three chapters, it is not clear why the author chose these topics and placed them in one book. The author’s use of the term ‘historians’ raises doubts. It is given not only to those who study history at institutes of higher education or who work as professional historians, but basically to everyone who writes on historical topics (p. 39). Such a definition would perhaps be appropriate if this was an analysis of historiography, the politics of history, or the historical consciousness, but not this work, which is oriented towards a description of the concept of the state and an analysis of the activities of individual people. Another criticism of the book from a conceptual point of view is re- lated to the selected chronological frames of the research. The title of the book indicates that the author is interested in the period 1904 to 1922, but basically the period 1904 to 1914 is not analysed in the book at all. In addition, the last chapter is actually devoted to 1922–1940, which, by the way, can be clearly seen from the attachments at the end of the work (pp. 355–367). Such an imbalance between the title of the study (disser- tation) and its content cannot be called a random or typographical error. Such discrepancies cannot simply be overlooked, so serious doubts arise not only about the author, but also about the competence of the work’s supervisor or opponents, or perhaps it is just a lack of attentiveness. The theoretical basis of the work raises doubts as well. The author, defining the theoretical framework for the study, discusses some concepts of well-known theorists of nationalism, among others, Anthony Smith and Ernest Gellner. The first is assigned to the ethnosymbolist group. The second is one of the most prominent modernists (i.e. researchers who emphasise that modern nations are ‘invented/created’, in other words, an effect of nationalism). Meanwhile, the definition of the nation provided by the author is nothing more than an obvious reflection of the primordialistic approach 27. It is not clear why the author frequently compares the attitudes of historians, primarily Klimas, with the current insights of West European nationalism theorists. After all, in this case we are looking at writings with different purposes. The writings by Klimas and other figures in the Lithuanian National Movement, especially before 1918, had not so much
27 ‘By the term “nation” I refer to a group of people bound together by a common origin, language and culture, living in the ethnic territory, having a common past and consciousness and a common vision for the future and claiming the right to rule itselfʼ (p. 51). The principle of a common origin is probably the best indicator of the primordialistic approach. 184 Review essays a scholarly research, but a political nature. In other words, Klimas and the others first of all sought to substantiate the rights of Lithuanians as a fully fledged nation, while Smith, or another researcher of nationalism, engaged in what can be called the analysis or deconstruction of what could be called the ideology (or ideologies) of nationalism, and therefore also the views of Klimas. In the part of the book devoted to projects for the restoration of a university (chapters 2, 3, 4), one had to state clearly how the author’s study differs from earlier works by historians, since there have already been many studies published on this topic 28. I would also evaluate critically the last section (Between National- ism and Internationalism: The Influence of the Universities of Eastern and Western Europe on the New University of Lithuania). There is an alternative formulated in the title of this chapter: between nationalism and ‘internationalism’. It would appear that the author considers ‘international- ism’ as the cooperation of Lithuania scholars of history in particular with researchers from other countries. However, after reading this chapter, it remains unclear why studies at a foreign university, traineeships in Western universities, giving or attending lectures, and participation in the activities of international organisations should affect the thinking of historians in the direction of ‘internationalism’. In general, this chapter is factual in nature, it describes who, when, where, and so on, attended schools, studied, worked, and so on, but there is no effort even to look for ideological influences, for example, what methodological innovations, perhaps even ideology, influenced these historians, how this encounter with scholars from other countries affected their world-view, the understanding of the object of the science of history, the scientific subject, the approach to various research methods, and so on. There are also many minor problems in the work. The thesis begins with a historical introduction (pp. 11–37), which, as has already been mentioned, is of a compilation nature (for example, the period until the end of the 18th century is related from the book by Zigmantas Kiaupa, Jūratė Kiaupienė and Albinas Kuncevičius 29), whose meaning is difficult to understand, it is not clear what the need is for such information, of an encyclopedic nature, in a research work, in addition, vexatious mistakes occur. 30 In describing the situation in the 19th century, the author is also
28 Č. Mančinskas, Aukštasis mokslas Lietuvoje 1918–1940 metais (Vilnius, 1996); I. Šenavičienė, A. Šenavičius, ‘Universiteto organizavimo pradžia: Aukštieji (vakariniai) kursai’, Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas. Mokslas ir visuomenė 1922–2002 (Kaunas, 2002), pp. 74–84 and others. 29 Z. Kiaupa, J. Kiaupienė, A. Kuncevičius, Lietuvos istorija iki 1795 (Vilnius, 1998). 30 On p. 12 it is written that the state of Lithuania was most likely created about 1340. This, apparently, is only a typographical error, because next to it it Review essays 185 often inaccurate, which, apparently, is related to the inadvertent reading of historical works. On p. 18, it is written that in 1840 the Russian govern- ment banned the use of the term ‘Lithuania’, but, in fact, the ban on this term was only in the titles of provinces, which, moreover, is clearly stated in the book by Egidijus Aleksandravičius and Antanas Kulakauskas Carų valdžioje. XIX amžiaus Lietuva 31, which the author in this case mainly used. The author begins to correct the already mentioned periodisation for national movements scheme of Miroslav Hroch for the Lithuanians (pp. 20, 29); but, however, she does not know that for a long time Lithuanian historians have discussed the matter with Hroch. Here we have mentioned only a few problems of a similar nature, although there are many more in the work.
is stated that the creation of the state is associated with the name of Mindaugas, and the years of his reign are indicated. 31 A. Kulakauskas, ‘Apie tautinio atgimimo sąvoką, tautinių sąjūdžių epochą ir lietuvių tautinį atgimimą’, LAIS, t. 1: Tautinės savimonės žadintojai: nuo asmens iki partijos (Vilnius, 1990), pp. 132–142.
Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 187–195
BOOK REVIEWS
Аkty, оtnosiash chiesia k istorii Zapadnoi Rossii, т. 1(6): Sbornik dokumentov Kantseliarii velikogo kniazia litovskogo Aleksandra Iagellonchika (1494– 1506 gg.). Shestaia kniga zapisei Litovskoi metriki [Акты, относящиеся к истории Западной России, т. 1(6): Сборник документов канцелярии великого князя литовского Александра Ягеллончика (1494–1506 гг.). Шестая книга записей Литовской метрики], ed. M.T. Bychkova, O.I. Khoruzhenko, A.V. Vinogradov, Moscow–St Petersburg, 2012, 664 p. ISBN 978-5-90598-630-7
The reviewed publication announces the updated publication of the Lithu anian Metrica (LM) in Russia by the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Russian History 1. After the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, this scholarly activity was stopped. With the blessing of the academician Vladimir Pashuto and his ability to get permission ‘from the top’ 2, there was an attempt to update LM research and publishing in 1978–1980 3, when the ‘long’ decade was measured out for the Soviet Union to live. I stress the decade of the end of the Soviet Union, because during the ‘long’ period of the collapse not a single book of the updated LM series was published, although some international preparatory tasks were com- pleted. At the same time, with archivists from Poland, the work of Patricia
1 The LM-228 book published in Moscow in 2008 was a joint project by Russian and Belarusian scholars, financed by Russia’s Science Humanitarian Fund and the Belarusian Republic Fundamental Research Fund, see Sudebnaia kniga vitebskogo voevody, gospodarskogo marshalka, volkovyskogo i oboletskogo derzhavtsy M.V. Klochko / 1533–1540. (Litovskaia Metrika. Kniga No 228. Kniga sudnykh del No 9), podgotovili V.A. Voronin, А.I. Grusha i dr. (Moscow, 2008), p. 525. Review by A. Dubonis: Lietuvos Metrikos naujienos, No 10–2007/2008 (Vilnius, 2009), pp. 30–33. 2 А.L. Khoroshkevich, ‘Poslednie publikatorskie nachinaniia V.Т. Pashuto i ikh sud’ba’, Vostochnaia Evropa v istoricheskoi retrospektive: k 80-letiiu V.Т. Pаshuto (Moscow, 1999), pp. 295–296. 3 Ana Leonidovna Khoroshkevich raised the idea of updating the publishing, see А.L. Khoroshkevich, ‘K istorii izdaniia i izucheniia Litovskoi Меtriki’, Acta Baltico-Slavica, ed. T. Cieślak, t. 8 (1973), p. 91. 188 book reviews Kennedy Grimsted was completed and published in 1984 4. Did the orga- nisational ability of Polish scholars at the time surpass the results of the Soviet updated Metricians? 5 In December 1980, an agreement between the academies of sciences of Poland and the USSR was signed to begin the publication of the books of the Metrica (two books during 1981–1985) 6. A joint international editorial board was formed. After a few years (in 1984–1985 7), the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences Institute of History joined this programme. Already at that time, the renewal of LM research and publishing began to be concentrated in Vilnius, without doubt due to the activities of Egidijus Banionis and the favour of the Institute’s Science Administration. Methodic publishing recommendations were issued, 8 and in 1988 a scholarly conference devoted to the problems of the LM was organised. Banionis began to prepare a book in the Soviet Metriciana plan, the unpublished part of the LM-5 book of legations 9. In Moscow at that time, the reviewed LM-6 book had to be prepared. Its publication was held back for all sorts of reasons, Muscovite colleagues from the Russian Institute of History mentioned them more than once 10. However, the preparers acquired an advantage, because they could take into account the experience of publishing several dozen books in Lithuania, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine: until 2012 more than 60 books of 15th to 18th century LM were published. The Muscovites do not hide the fact that they evaluated it when issuing their publication (p. 10), but remained silent on what palaeographic practices of the Lithuanians and Belarusians they
4 P. Kennedy Grimsted, I. Sułkowska-Kurasiowa, The Lithuanian Metrica in Moscow and Warsaw: reconstructing the archives of the Grand Duchy of Lithua nia (Cambridge (Mass.) 1984), XVII [1], 73 [1] p.; VII, 278, [1] с. (with reprint: S.L. Ptashitskii, Оpisanie knig i аktov Litovskoi Меtriki (St Petersburg, 1887), 109 c. (appendixes)). 5 Metryka Litewska: księga sigillat 1709–1719, ed. A. Rachuba (Warsaw, 1987), 265, [2] s. 6 V.Т. Pashuto, А.L. Khoroshkevich, ‘Sovmestnaia publikatsiia sovetskikh i pol’skikh istorikov’, Voprosy istorii (1981), No 2, pp. 158–160; М. Bychkova, Litovskaia Меtrika – sovmestnoe izdanie sovetskikh i pol’skikh istorikov, Istoriia SSSR (1981), No 4, pp. 214–215; T. Wasilewski, ‘Polsko–radzieckie prace nad wydaniem Metryki Litewskiej’, Kwartalnik historyczny, No 4 (1981), pp. 1169–1171. 7 The topic of the Lithuanian Metrica began to be mentioned in 1984–1985 in the account of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Science History Institute, see Lietuvos istorijos metraštis. 1985 metai (Vilnius, 1986), p. 156. 8 Меtodicheskie rekomendatsii po izdaniiu i opisaniiu Litovskoi Меtriki, sostavili А.L. Khoroshkevich, S.М. Kashtanov (Vilnius, 1985), p. 133. 9 Lietuvos Metrika (1427–1506). Knyga Nr. 5. Užrašymų knyga 5. Litovskaia Меtrika: kniga zapisei 5, prep. by E. Banionis (Vilnius, 1993), p. 402. 10 No longer believing in the issuance of the LM-6 book, LIH scholars published it, see Lietuvos Metrika. Knyga Nr. 6 (1494–1506). Užrašymų knyga 6, ed. A. Baliulis (Vilnius, 2007), p. 518. book reviews 189 found acceptable and appropriate. Our question is justified, because until the appearance of the LM-6 book, the same LM-6 book authors Margareta Bychkova and Oleg Khoruzhenko, in a published article and review 11 about the Metrica issued in Lithuania, had found little praiseworthy in Lithuanian archaeographic practice and results achieved. 12 As a final and unquestio- nable truth, and with the help of the methodological recommendations of Khoroshkevich and Kashtanova, Muscovite colleagues ‘measured’ the level of scholarly development of the first few LM books issued in Lithuania. They did not find valuable examples, and if any were discovered, they were taken over in silence, but carefully selected and panned the deficiencies and weaker places of the Lithuanian publications. They called the simplified transliteration of the old Russian text древнерусский текст 13, abandoning the outdated ‘old Russian’ Cyrillic letters, as the most inappropriate practice. One can only partially agree with this allegation. Indeed, by conveying the whole old Cyrillic spelling of the text of the LM book, one would no longer have to resolve intricate philological questions, for example for which period – the making of the document and its transcription into an LM book at the beginning of the 16th century, or the rewriting of the book at the end of the 16th century – the graphic form of the letter hides the sound. For example, the simplest vowel ‘е’ in some of the LM books is presented as ‘ɛ’, and elsewhere as ‘є’, and in another LM we discover that ‘ɛ’ ≠ ‘є’ since the latter is more similar to the modern pronounciation of ‘э’. The sound ja ‘я’ is presented by two different letters ‘ѧ‘ or ‘ӕ‘, the scribes often used outside any rule, but as a personal sentiment for one or another form of the letters. Looking at the letters used in the LM-6 documents published in Moscow (on p. 12 of the Introduction the principles of transliteration are explained) the usage of ‘ω’ omega, ‘ө’ fita, ‘γ’ uk seems pointless. For example ‘ω’ is written at the beginning of the word, in other headings only ‘o’, uk the writing of ‘γ’ and ‘y’ one cannot see any rule at all – they are artificial ornaments of the text’s ‘scholarliness’. Perhaps only the preservation of the letters „ѣ“, „ѥ“, „ѩ“, „є“ in the publication would be scientifically meaningful. In scholarly literature on similar questions, it was noted a long time ago that the orthographic diversity of the Cyrillic texts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) was just the personal choice of the scribe in order to vary the text with the sophisticated graphics of the letters, but not any norm
11 O. Khoruzhenko reviewed LM-6 prepared by A. Baliulis, see Novosti Litovskoi Metriki, No 10–2007/2008 (Vilnius, 2009), pp. 5–8. 12 М.Е. Bychkova, О.I. Khoruzhenko, ‘Sovremennye printsipy izdaniia kirilli cheskikh dokumentov Litovskoi metriki’, Тrudy Instituta Rossiiskoi istorii, 8 (Моscow, 2009), pp. 70–86. 13 Ibid, pp. 72–73. 190 book reviews of spelling. The norm was the toleration of this variety in the relatively unified Cyrillic writings. 14 It makes no sense to publish all the outdated letters in the text and convert the publication into a souvenir of fancy letters. The Cyrillic texts of the GDL chancelleries are not ‘old-Russian’ texts; therefore, the LM preparers, with justification, adapt a simplified scheme of publishing trans- literation created by their own archaeographic traditions for the published documents. The usage of outdated letters in the text of a historical document written in the GDL Cyrillic alphabet gives it little exceptionality. Their use in the text of the manuscript and the transliteration in the publication, here one has to agree with Muscovite colleagues, could be discussed in the introductions of the published books. Deeper diplomatic studies would be needed for proving the preserved features of the original documents in the copies of the LM books. Working with hundreds of copies in a single book is just a waste of time. To all this it must be added that the search for uniqueness can be useless, because we are publishing at best a copy of a copy of an original document appearing at the end of the 16th century while making copies of the old LM books. Muscovite colleagues also encountered this when in the original of the No. 6 document copied in the LM-6 book they did not find important juridical clauses for some reason written in the copy (p. 426 [No. 6], and p. 517 [No. 579]). One can compare the numerous duplicate copies of the same documents in other LM books of the same time. We will be convinced that conveying the graphic appearance of the letters was not the most important task for the scribes, they would even ‘edit’ the document: change the lexicon, omit words and phrases, and so on. Finally, linguists of the Old Russian langu- age, on the basis of ‘old-Russian’ texts, the expression and transformation into the GDL Ruthenian (Belarusian and Ukrainian) language in the 15th and 16th centuries find not in the graphics of the outdated Cyrillic letters of the LM books, but in the phonetics, vocabulary and morphology of the texts of the same books. 15 The publishers of the LM-6 book followed the principle of conveying all the forms of the letter in the manuscript. But they did not publish the letter ‘α’ alfa. Without comments, it was rendered as ‘a’. After checking the accuracy of the transcription of the first three documents, we found a few errors. In document No. 1 instead of ‘o’ two times ‘e’ is written
14 I. Kremko, ‘О kharaktere iazykovoi normy Statuta Velikogo Kniazhestva Litovskogo 1588 goda’, 1588 m. Trečiasis Lietuvos Statutas. Respublikinės mokslinės konferencijos, skirtos Trečiojo Statuto 400 metinėms pažymėti, medžiaga, ed. S. La- zutka et al. (Vilnius, 1989), pp. 197–205. 15 Т. Vlasova, ‘Iazyk Pervogo Litovskogo Statuta (1529 g.)’, Pirmasis Lietuvos Statutas ir epocha, ed. I. Valikonytė, L. Steponavičienė (Vilnius, 2005), pp. 249–256. book reviews 191 (‘приидγчего’ instead of ‘приидγчого’, and ‘наше’ instead of ‘нашо’), the incorrect letter in the word ‘светого’ should be ‘свєтого’, while ‘св(е)та Петра’ is incorrectly reconstructed as ‘св(е)та(го) Петра’. In document No. 2 there is one error: ‘еще’ instead of ‘ещо’. No. 3 is re-written without error, but it certainly does not prove that in the other documents of the Muscovite publications we will not find transliteration errors. In the last checked document, No. 5, there are mistakes again: instead of ‘ъ’ a few times ‘ь’ is written. In some places one may suspect computer software proofing ‘services’ :‘копь’ instead of ‘копъ’, but not in the case of ‘немь’ instead of ‘немъ’. The letters ‘и ни’ were incorrectly read because they had to be ‘ани’. These small errors do not distort the texts, they occur in all publications, but they could have been fewer. To the casual reader, it might appear that M. Bychkova and O. Kho- ruzhenko fulfil the methodological recommendations, which they did not see in the Lithuanian publications: next to the reduced vowel consonant the reduced vowel ‘ь’, already indicating the softness of the consonant, provides comments on 195 documents from the 623 published in the book, makes a chronological list of documents, creates modern headlines for them, and provides scholarly informational descriptions of the original document, copies and publication. Indexes of place names and ethno- nyms, as well as names of people, are formed separately, but there is no subject index. The chronological list of documents and the indexes of the Muscovite LM-6 book merit the smallest reproaches. The indexes can be assigned to the more informative. Place-names and ethnonyms explained according to the old and current dependence of the place are presented in modern spelling forms (the Lithuanian spelling is not always accurate). In the index of personal names the chronology of the mention of the person in the texts of the published LM book is given, and where possible, the coats of arms of the boyar families is indicated. Other archaeographic scholarly and technical solutions by the preparers of the LM-6 book can be criticised. The reconstruction of ‘ь’ next to the entered raised consonant already raises routine doubts. Usually, softening can be expected in the manuscript, but does one need to create a mark in the publication if we mark the raised letter by italics, informing the user of the text about the softness (or hardness) of the consonant? Moreover, the parentheses com- pulsorily placed in the reconstruction visually overload the text. The block of comments is very fragmented. Bychkova and Khoruzhenko only in rare instances fulfilled the requirements of the methodological recommendations, although they criticised the Lithuanian archaeographists for poor comments. One can justify the shortcomings of the work of colleagues, because the dimensions of the works foreseen for the publication of the sources of the methodological recommendations are unreasonably great, requiring 192 book reviews one to complete solid scholarly research and to present it as concisely as possible 16, for the hundreds of documents in the LM book. The comments of the Metrica published by the Lithuanian Institute of History (LIH) are for a long time presented simplified, in the Lithuanian language (such a scholarly language is unacceptable to Muscovite colleagues); the extended title of the document, data on the original of the published document, copies and publishing, explanation of the dating, and other valuable information. The Muscovite palaeographers made comments on about 30 per cent of the documents published in the LM-6 book. The comments corrected dates, presented explanations of words and concepts, data about the po- litical figures, some of the historical realities linked to the documents, and the situations of locations, natural objects, churches, etc. Although we did not check the accuracy of all the published comments, some of them are impermissibly misleading: in No. 51 (p. 434) the explanation of окротенство as владение ‘rule’, whereas it should be ‘cruelty, merciless- ness’; No. 244 (p. 443) Pelesa is a left tributary of the Merkys, and not of the Nemunas; No. 590 (p. 452) страва is not ‘обида’ ‘wrong’, but ‘feeding, food’; No. 604 (p. 453) рок завитый is not сложный, замысловатый ‘complex, confusing’ term, but ‘final’; no. 616 (p. 454) плитница is not разновидность кирпича ‘brick style’, but ‘brick, brick manufacturing site’. The explanations of the Lithuanian terms in the comments are a fiasco. Three village inhabitants of the Karmėlava parish were turned into the na- mes of men’s and women’s clothing (No. 5, p. 425) свилонци (Svylonys), a type of silk свила; саси (Šešuva?), woman сак; шатцы (Šatijai), outer piece of clothing шата. The term дяклы (No. 13, p. 427) is not Polish but Lithuanian: dėkla. After document 13 the preparers of the comments make no more comments on Lithuanian matters. It would appear that they and the readers understand the meaning of these Lithuanian words: дойлид, клеть, клуня, кунпи, лейти, ройсты, свирен, скилонди, стирта. The preparers of the commentary trust only the data in the 11th to 16th-century Russian language dictionary, and ignore the fact that official forms in the GDL Ruthenian language for social, domestic, economic and other concepts in the 15th–16th century acquired many different meanings from Moscow’s Russian (Muscovite language). As a result, the Muscovite colleagues had to use the Belarusian-prepared Гiстарычны слоўнiк беларускай мовы (32 volumes were published by 2012). And the more recent by Maciej
16 Меtоdicheskie rekomendatsii, p. 74 (No 399): the justification of the dating, the mutual interfaces of the publication documents and their links to documents not included in the publication, brief information about mentioned persons and events, identification of historical geographical places, their present location, explanations of less frequently used names of measures, money, etc., comments on the more difficult to understand places of the text. book reviews 193 Neuman concluded, supplemented by Krzysztof Pietkiewicz, itineraries of Grand Duke Alexander remain on the sidelines 17. Being demanding on the Lithuanian archaeographists, the preparers of the Muscovite LM-6 book were more indulgent with themselves. They did not prepare the subject and term indexes designated in the methodological requirements, and did not explain this decision 18. On the other hand, the efforts of the preparers to replace them with explanations of subjects and terms in comments, or to introduce into the index of locations and ethnic names certain objects, for example, дом, дорога, имения, место городовое, монастыри, мост etc, with dependent words, only proves that the index of objects and terms in LM publications is mandatory. We will not praise the colleagues as they praised the Vilnius University palaeographers 19 for the publication of examples of watermarks and scripts. They are not provided in the LM-6 book. In the chronological list, the scholarly literature is cited in an inconvenient manner. First, there are some that are not included in the main list of literature positions with citation abbreviations (pp. 421–422), and second, the descriptors of some of the literature cited additionally in the chronological list are presented abbreviated, for example, Archiwum Sanguszków (p. 459, No. 42, and so on). One exceptional and astonishing feature of the LM-6 publication is the non-use of new LM research, supporting literature. This is not only the ignoring of Belarusian and Polish dictionaries, research and informa- tion publications (texts in the Lithuanian language for the Muscovites, apparently, are impenetrable). It is as if the publishers are declaring that the last and most important word about research into Metriciana was spoken in Moscow. In the foreword, the authors repeat the very outdated (1946) conclusions of Nicholas Berezhkov about the structure of the LM books in the 16th century, 20 and argue that the LM-6 book was copied from several early books at the end of the 16th century (pp. 5–6), and
17 M. Neuman, ‘Itinerarium Aleksandra Jagiellończyka, wielkiego księcia litew- skiego, króla polskiego (czerwiec 1492 – sierpień 1506)’, Studia z dziejów Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego XIV–XVIII wieku, pod red. J. Ochmańskiego (Poznań, 1971), pp. 117–156; M. Neuman, K. Pietkiewicz, ‘Lietuvos didžiojo kunigaikščio ir Len- kijos karaliaus Aleksandro Jogailaičio itinerariumas (1492 m. birželis – 1506 m. rugpjūtis)’, Lietuvos istorijos metraštis. 1995 metai (Vilnius, 1996), pp. 154–240. 18 One of the preparers of the reviewed publications even announced his reflec- tions on the problems arising when creating the subject indexes. See О. Khoru- zhenko, ‘Nauchno-spravochnyi аpparat v sovremennykh izdaniiakh srednevekovykh dokumentov’, Istorijos šaltinių tyrimai, t. 2, compiled by A. Dubonis (Vilnius, 2010), pp. 209–17. 19 М.Е. Bychkova, О.I. Khoruzhenko, ‘Sovremennye printsipy izdaniia kiril- licheskikh dokumentov’, p. 83. 20 N.G. Berezhkov, Litovskaia Меtrika kak istoricheskii istochnik: о pervo nachal’nom sostave knig Litovskoi Меtriki pо 1522 god, ch. 1 (Moscow–Leningrad, 1946), p. 179 [1]. 194 book reviews even more the 6th Book of Inscriptions was made in 1596–1597 (p. 10) 21. Muscovite colleagues overlooked the opinion of K. Pietkiewicz that early LM books already in the late 15th century and early 16th century had the same appearance as those rewritten at the end of the 16th century 22. This was confirmed recently by the list of copied LM books found by Darius Antanavičius 23. I think that the only reason for the ostentatious carelessness lies in the intentions of the preparers of the LM-6 book to characterise the book of the Chancellery of Lithuania’s grand duke as a formless ‘pile’ of bundles of documents, fibres, and notebooks of ‘books’ which will turn into a real book at the end of the 16th century. It is surprising that cognate analogues of such a practice of record keeping are sought only in the archive of the Tsar of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the 16th century 24. Both chancelleries, in Moscow and Vilnius, allegedly managed in the same way, in them древнерусский текст, ‘old-Russian texts’ are created: these and similar claims justify the ambitious and aggressive title of the LM book publishing series renewed in Moscow ‘Acts of Western Russian History’, [Акты, относящиеся к истории Западной России], in which we will not immediately find information that an LM book is being published. The concept of the GDL’s past as a version of Russia’s history is firmly imprinted in the scholarly journal cover published in the 2010s, but nowhere it is explained what considerations determined such failed decisions by the archaographists of the Russian History Institute. Finally, a few words about international scholarly collaboration, the duplication of published LM books, and the scholarly value of the LM-6 books published in 2007 in Lithuania and 2012 in Moscow. LIH palaeo- graphers always open the gates wide to colleagues from Kiev, Moscow, Minsk and Warsaw: they invite them to scholarly conferences, in their scholarly press they publish their research work in their native language, they send information about Metriciana news and try to give as gifts the most recent publications, and according to the possibilties they include
21 The conclusions are justified more broadly: О.I. Khoruzhenko, ‘Kodiko- logicheskii aspekt problemy nachal’nogo sostava knig Litovskoi Меtriki’, Pa- leografiia i kodikologiia: 300 let posle Monfokona. Маterialy Меzhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, Моskva, 14–16 maia 2008 g. (Моscow, 2008), pp. 233–241. 22 K. Pietkiewicz, ‘Księga 9 wpisów (записей) Metryki Litewskiej, układ i zawartość, oraz jej kontynuacja do roku 1518 z Archiwum Radziwiłłowskiego’, Lietuvos Metrika. 1991–1996 metų tyrinėjimai (Vilnius, 1998), pp. 19–20. 23 D. Аntanavichius, ‘Naiden reestr original’nych knig Litovskoi Меtriki XVI v.’, Novosti Litovskoi Меtriki. Nauchno-informatsionnoe prilozhenie zhurnala “Еzhegodnik istorii Litvy”, No 12–2010 (Vilnius, 2011), pp. 18–25; D. Antanavičius, ‘Originalių Lietuvos Metrikos XVI a. knygų sąrašas’, Istorijos šaltinių tyrimai, t. 4, comp. by A. Dubonis (Vilnius, 2012), pp. 157–184. 24 О.I. Khoruzhenko, Kodikologicheskii aspekt, pp. 239–240. book reviews 195 them in joint projects. The e-mail network always connects everyone re- liably, providing possibilities for continuous contact: no one would have hidden from the Muscovites the lituanica meanings of the LM-6 book, and hilarious mistakes would have been avoided. The sad Muscovite comment in the Foreword about the (non-) coordination of LM International Project (p. 5, note 2) should not sadden everyone, because there are only two repeated LM publications (in addition to LM-6 there is the musterlist of the Lithuanian army in 1528, published in Vilnius and Minsk), they were prepared independently, and not plagiarised. We will not discuss here the reasons for their publication. One thing can be said: we will not avoid the duplication of publications in the future, because along with the in- ternational coordination of scholarly activities the pragmatic affairs of the publishing of important new sources for Lithuanian history, the financing of the publishing, and the related work speed, the dissemination of the results and trade of publications of affairs. Bookshops in neither Moscow nor Minsk trade in Lithuanian publications, like theirs in Lithuania, while the exchanges of these books still go on through personal exchanges. Es- sentially, one should value the duplication of books as the larger circulation of one publication in the market for East and Central European scholarly publications: since 2009 the LM’s print run in Lithuania was reduced by several times. So we have two LM-6 book publications. The texts of both books have been prepared carefully, although some errors or misunderstandings are inevitable, but as a source of history publications they are reliable. Scientific-information machine wider Muscovite published LM-6, but it is more geared to the GDL rusica, but not lituanica. The LM-6 book by Algirdas Baliulis has the advantage of a carefully selected subject index, which is not in the Muscovite publication. Essentially, the two versions of the LM-6 book are scholarly publications of sources, which all those who are interested in GDL history in the times of Grand Duke Alexander (1492–1506) can use without suspicion of ignorance and belittling of the completed work.
Artūras Dubonis Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 196–201
B.N. Floria, Russkoe gosudarstvo i еgo Zapadnye sosedi (1655–1661 gg.) [Флоря Б.Н., Русское государство и его Западные соседи (1655– 1661 гг.)], Moscow: Indrik, 2010, 656 p. ISBN 978-5-91674-082-0
When this monograph by Boris Floria appeared, it was hoped that the work would evaluate the earlier Russian historiography on the topic, and, relying on newly discovered sources, present a contemporary, new approach to this painful, ‘Deluge’ period. According to the Imperial Russian, and even more Soviet understanding, in 1654–1666, the Muscovite state fought a fair war of liberation: it helped (having been asked) the Ukrainian and Belarusian nations to free themselves from the yoke of the Poles and Lithuanians, while uniting all three East Slavic lands into a united tsarist government. Unfortunately, the annotation on page 4 of the discussed book causes alarm. It declares that the monograph is analysing relations between Russia and its Western neighbours after the Pereyaslav Rada and Ukraine’s anne- xation [here this desire is presented as a reality?] 1, the Russian state made great efforts to resolve the most important challenges it faced in foreign poli- cy – the unification of the Eastern Slavic lands and the conquest of an outlet to the Baltic Sea [wondering just who, and when, raised such challenges for Russia, and what forced them to decide?]. In the first sentences of the monograph’s introduction, albeit tentatively, it is admitted that in the middle of the 17th century a crisis arose in the tradi- tional system of international relations in Eastern Europe with the actions of the Russian side playing not the final role ... (p. 6). But later some challenges (without specifying them) standing against Russia are mentioned again and, apparently, fate or even higher powers faced the Russian elite with the neces- sity [my emphasis – E.M.] to make decisions on the fate of Ukraine and the joint state of Poland–Lithuania (p. 6). The short review of sources mentions only the Moscow Prikaz records in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents, and, as if insuring against possible criticism, stresses that the monograph explores the history of Russia’s foreign policy in 1655–1661, rather than the system of international relations of part of Eastern Europe (p. 7). But it does not succeed in avoiding criticism. The Ukrainian historian Jaroslav Fedoruk, with full justification, stated that for a thorough study of the various processes and intentions that took place at that time in Eastern Europe, it is clearly too small, and provided a number of examples of sources
1 This is something new; up to now in Russia there was talk and writing about the unification of Russia and Ukraine. book reviews 197 and how (especially by comparing them) they could be used, so that the view would be much more complete, and not one-sided 2. From the Russian side, all of its neighbours (at least to the West) often hear exhortations ‘not to politicise history’. However when in a single page one reads that war became inevitable when the decision was made in Mos- cow to accept Ukraine into Russia’s custody (although it was not Poland and Lithuania which thereby broke the Eternal Peace with Russia, concluded just 20 years earlier, but vice versa), and on another page, it is noted as axio- matic that someone always gave Muscovy the task of uniting all the Eastern Slavic lands around Moscow. One might think this, a Sisyphean task, which is still underway without a chance of completion. Is this not due to the little Lithuanians and treacherous Poles incited by the treacherous West with the Pope at the forefront? Or perhaps just these unhappy, ‘enslaved’ Eastern Slavs and Orthodox Christians did not really wish to be pod vysokoju cars- koju rukoju, but played their games, as they are playing them up to now? They went to rescue the Ukrainians, but probably the Belarusians and those very Ukrainians suffered the most ... Discussing the diplomatic activities of the Russians, it is pointed out that the Muscovites formed the opinion of Europe’s rulers at that time, that essentially no one would come to the assistance of Poland and Lithuania. One can note that one of the main reasons provoking another aggressor, Sweden, to attack the state of Poland and Lithuania was the aim to stop the expansion of Russia to the west, that is, that it by itself would not destroy the victims and become established on the Baltic coast. The monograph makes the bold conclusion that the magnates and sz- lachta of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania clearly stopped considering the Russian government temporary (p. 42). Yes, at that time many gentry and a few magnates in the conquered lands, wanting to preserve their posses- sions under the conditions of occupation, swore allegiance to the tsar, but as subsequent events showed, most of them were to forsake that forced oath at the slighest opportunity, namely because they considered the Russian go- vernment temporary, and swore an oath to it only when they were forced by circumstances. Summarising the successful year 1655 for Russia, the author states that never before were Russian politicians so close to resolving the task, which they raised [my emphasis – E.M.] in the 1490s to unite all the Eastern Slavic lands in a unified Russian state (p. 43). But here, as always, the Poles inter- fered, as well as the Swedes ... Emphasising the Swedish reluctance to make any decisions that would consolidate the new situation unfolding between the two countries in 1655, because it was preparing to attack Russia. The- refore, to hinder the plans of Charles X Gustav, a plan for a preventive [my
2 Ia. Fedoruk, Vilens’kii dogovyr 1656 roku. Skhidnoevropeis’ka kriza i Ukraina u seredini XVII stolittia (Kiev, 2011), p. 30. 198 book reviews emphasis – E.M.] war with Sweden was raised (p. 49). How useful here would have been the sources of the same Swedes ... Considerable attention is devoted to the economic considerations jus- tifying the war against the Swedes, showing how the Swedes ‘harmed’ Rus- sian merchants, restricting their trade through the Livonian ports belonging to the Swedes in every way, even though somehow Russian trade through these ports increased, and the Swedes themselves were interested in its growth and the income from it. But here, it appeared to the Russians that they were unfairly wronged, even though everything was based on bilateral agreements, and they, as the author writes, decided to destroy the Swedish– erected barriers to Europe by force. The Swedes, according to the author, were also guilty, for by becoming involved in this conflict, they forced other countries to engage in it, which previously had not intended to, and were inclined to leave Russia unhindered to defend its interests in the fight against its neighbours. Describing the failed Russian attempt in 1656 to take Livonia with Riga away from the Swedes, the author believes that the Russians overestimated their strength. On the other hand, it is shown that the Polish and Lithuanian side, after the recapture of Warsaw from the Swedes, also overestimated their options before the beginning of the 1656 negotiations near Vilnius. The Russian positions with respect to the Poles and Lithuanians were eased by their defeat near Riga. Since both sides needed a ceasefire very much, on 11 March 1656 near Vilnius (in Nemėžys), it was signed by both parties without adopting any major commitments, but only agreeing not to end the war against the Swedes, and promising to elect the tsar as the ruler of Poland and Lithuania in the next Seimas. In discussing the situation that arose in 1657, when the forces of Swe- den, Brandenburg-Prussia, Transylvania and Ukraine united in a coalition against Poland and Lithuania, the author shows how this threatened the latter, and how they tried to seek Russian assistance. In turn, even though B. Khmelnytsky, by joining this coalition, actually joined the side of the enemies of Russia, the Russians did not make very strong statements, be- cause they believed that the situation would speed up the Polish decision to elect the tsar to their throne. Moscow had to make important political decisions, because otherwise, by not interfering, the danger of completely losing control of the situation and no longer being a decisive factor in this war threatened. But in the summer of 1657, matters turned out differently. The Crimean Tatars, the Turkish Sultan and Austria provided assistance to Poland and Li- thuania. Denmark invaded the Swedish holdings, and therefore the Swedish king and his army left Cossack troops and the Transylvania army in Poland actually alone, and the latter were eventually forced to surrender to Polish, Lithuanian and Tatar forces. And Khmelnytsky was forced to abandon the book reviews 199 independent policy that he had carried out at the end of 1656 and in the first half of 1657, and then to seek a rapprochement with Moscow again. After the situation in Poland had changed radically, Moscow realised that the election of the tsar to the throne of the Republic had become very qu- estionable. Only the Lithuanians, not wanting a war in their lands, supported, at least in words, this wish by the Russians, while the Polish szlachta were inclined to choose the son of the Austrian emperor. Meanwhile, in Ukraine after Khmelnytsky’s death, the Cossacks elected Ivan Vygovski as the new hetman, who at first continued the line of cooperation with Moscow, but a conflict within the country arose when the peaceful period became establis- hed, the Cossack masses, accustomed to fighting continuously, no longer had a source of livelihood, because salaries were not being paid. Here is the interesting observation by the author that the Moscow ‘bureaucracy’ was known for its many flaws, but unlike, for example, the Republic’s govern- ment, it regularly paid wages for service, and was therefore acceptable to the Cossack masses (p. 296). Throughout the whole book, one can notice the author’s reluctance to see in the actions of the Ukrainians the nascent independent Ukrainian state. All Ukrainian actions are presented only as some form of decision adopted by the Cossack leaders for their own interests, and they are valued only as much as they were in line with or conflicted with the interests of the state of Moscow rather than the interests of the Ukrainian state, even though often those of one group contradicted those of the other. From this followed the constant instabi- lity in Ukraine, which allowed its neighbours to manipulate it. The author tries to portray the Cossack rapprochement with the Poles and Lithuanians essentially only as the dissatisfaction of the then Cossack hetman, I. Vygovski, and his entourage of Cossack chiefs with the Russians, who did not support them sufficiently against their enemies within Ukraine and tried to limit their autonomy. This, without doubt, had an impact on the Ukrainian decision, especially the second motive for autonomy; but, appa- rently, there is no doubt that the Cossack leadership saw more opportunities for statehood in the weakened and, according to the conditions at that time, liberal state of Poland and Lithuania, than in the growing autocratic Russia. The author acknowledges that in the occupied territories of Lithuania, the Russians lost control, and the szlachta that had sworn an oath of loyalty to the tsar went over to the side of King John Casimir. The situation was no easier in the Belarusian GDL lands, where the majority of the population acted against the Russians. After the Russian victories at the beginning of 1660, from the summer, the Lithuanians and the Poles took the initiative and pushed the occupiers out of Lithuania and a large part of the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. The errors the Russians made in the Belarusian lands in the GDL and Ukraine are analysed. According to the author, the Russians realised that they did not have the trust of the majority of Ukrainians, but not 200 book reviews fearing anything pursued in their own interests, mainly relying on the left– bank Ukraine, where there were more Cossacks supporting Moscows side. At the end, it became clear why the chronology of the book covers such a rather strange period, 1655–1661. It turns out that the Swedes were guilty, because by intervening in 1655 in the traditional, chronic and usual conflict between two East European states about which no one in Europe cared too much, they created an international crisis. The crisis ended when in the sum- mer of 1661, the Russians and the Swedes signed a peace treaty in Cardis, and Moscow could once again, as it was accustomed to, manage its bilateral relations with its neighbours without the interference of the international community. It seemed that it turned out that no one could have their own legitimate interests where Moscow had them, because by interfering with its and the other side’s relations, the ‘outsider’ as if distorts the natural course of events, and thereby hinders Russia in resolving the challenges standing before it, and then it faces the necessity to make decisions related to the destinies of states and nations. It seems that Russia has always been right in bilateral relations for hundreds of years, and if it is wrong, then read from the beginning ... The author states that in the middle of the 17th century, in the ruling circles of Russia, projects were created to make it dominant in the region, its western neighbours had to be subdued, but they did not succeed in imple- menting them fully. The reason for this was not only the insufficient Russian military and financial capabilities, but also the underdeveloped diplomatic corps, and as a consequence the lack of accurate information, as well as the slow making of decisions. In the author’s opinion, the most important (Rus- sian) priority in the year was the fight for the attachment of the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands previously [sic] being in the composition of the Polish– Lithuanian state. And the solution to resolve the Baltic question was taken at a time when it was already thought that the problem of the ‘collection’ of the Eastern Slavic lands was already essentially resolved (p. 645). It is stated that Moscow consistently adhered to this order of priorities, and no one was able to distort it, and it made all major decisions, though not always correct, independently, and not affected by anyone. The book ends with a minimal index of names and a brief glossary. Unfortunately, as is quite often the case with Russian monographs, there is no list of literature and sources, nor an index of place–names. One can say that this ook creates a dual impression, because the author has really provided a multitude of hitherto unused sources from Russian ar- chives. This is a definite plus for the work. But there are not, except for ones already published, any sources from the archives of other countries. This undoubtedly makes the work one-sided, all the more so as the author accepts rather uncritically the data provided in Muscovite sources, and this makes the job even more one-sided, even though there were very great efforts to maintain objectivity and neutrality. Another major drawback of the work is book reviews 201 that the author, in essence, does not know the latest foreign historiography, and relies mainly on works 20 years old or even older. Even so, Floria’s study is really valuable, if only for bringing into scholarly circulation a mul- titude of Russian sources, and new insights. However, the repetition of the old Imperial Russian and Soviet stereotypes (about the Russian duty, not fearing any other interests to unite the Eastern Slavs, and open a window to Europe) in assessing the events of that time, makes, these days, a rather strange impression. Elmantas Meilus Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 202–212
Eligijus Raila, Ignotus Ignotas: Vilniaus vyskupas Ignotas Jokūbas Masals- kis, Vilnius: Aidai, 2010, 236 p. ISBN 978-9955-65-678-4 1
Eligijus Raila, today’s leading researcher into the Age of Enlightenment in Lithuania, has written another treatise on the issues of the era. 2 In 2010, Aidai published his monograph Ignotus Ignotas: Vilniaus vyskupas Ignotas Jokūbas Masalskis that was based on his dissertation 3 successfully defended on 16 January 1996 in the Faculty of History at Vilnius University. This 236-page illustrated historical biography contains a preface, three major research components (the political activities of Masalskis: between tradition and reform; the cultural activities of Masalskis: the fate of the Educational Enlightenment; the economic activities of Masalskis: the configuration of physiocracy in Lithuania), a list of sources and a bibliography, and name and place name indexes. The book does not have a summary in a foreign language. Although the study is aimed primarily at a Lithuanian-reading audience, the history of Lithuania as a Central/East European state and its historiography is interesting and relevant to specialists in Western humanities and social sciences who are interested in studies of the past carried out in post-communist countries. A pleasant coincidence is that in the year of the publication of Raila’s book, in one of the most prestigious U.S. periodical publications, The American Historical Review, there was a forum of historians ‘New Perspectives on the Enlightenment’, showing the reactualisation of research on the Age of the Enlightenment. 4 Unfortunately,
1 The article was prepared during a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Eu- ropean Union Structural Funds project ‘Postdoctoral Fellowship Implementation in Lithuania’ within the framework of the Measure for Enhancing Mobility of Scholars and Other Researchers and the Promotion of Student Research (VP1-3.1-MES-01) of the Programme of Human Resources Development Action Plan. 2 These include Raila’s first study of the Enlightenment era: E. Raila, Apie 1791 gegužės 3-iosios konstituciją (Vilnius, 2007). 3 E. Raila, Vilniaus vyskupas Ignotas Masalskis ir Apšvietos epocha Lietuvoje. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, (Vilnius, 1995). 4 See: F.J. Johnsson, ‘Rival Ecologies of Global Commerce: Adam Smith and the Natural Historians’, American Historical Review, 115, (2010), pp. 1342– 1363; W.M. Nelson, ‘Making Men: Enlightenment Ideas of Racial Engineering’, ibid., pp. 1364–1394; K. O’Brien, ‘The Return of the Enlightenment’, ibid., pp. 1426–1435; S.A. Reinert, ‘Lessons on the Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Conquest, Commerce, and Decline in Enlightenment Italy’, ibid., pp. 1395–1425. book reviews 203 for a historian not reading Lithuanian, but investigating and comparing Enlightenment phenomena in different countries, 5 the original insights set forth by Raila about this epoch in Lithuania will remain unreachable. The best evaluation of the book for its author is the continued academic discussion from various perspectives, and this book is definitely worthy of it. In this article, we will look at the monograph from the perspectives of the theory of history (Chapter I) and economic history (Chapter II). With the help of the latter (in particular I. Wallerstein’s capitalist world system [CWS] theory 6), we will try to articulate in more detail, as well as expand the
5 See especially L. Kontler, ‘What is the (Historians’) Enlightenment Today?’, European Review of History–Revue européenne d’histoire, 13 (2006), pp. 357–371; F. Oz-Salzberger, ‘The Enlightenment in Translation: Regional and European As- pects’, ibid., pp. 385–409; T.S. Brnardić, ‘The Enlightenment in Eastern Europe: Between Regional Typology and Particular Micro-history’, ibid., pp. 411–435; L. Wolff, ‘The Global Perspective of Enlightened Travellers: Philosophic Geography from Siberia to the Pacific Ocean’, ibid., pp. 437–453; S. Sörlin, ‘Science, Empire, and Enlightenment: Geographies of Northern Field Science’, ibid., pp. 455–472; G. Abbattista, ‘Empire, Liberty and the Rule of Difference: European Debates on British Colonialism in Asia at the End of the Eighteenth Century’, ibid., pp. 473–498; C. Hesse, ‘Towards a New Topography of Enlightenment’, ibid., pp. 499–508; T.S. Brnardić, ‘Exchange and Commerce: Intercultural Communication in the Age of Enlightenment’, ibid., pp. 79–99; K. Kļaviņš, ‘The Baltic Enlightenment and Perceptions of Medieval Latvian history’, Journal of Baltic Studies, 29, no. 3 (1998), pp. 213–224. 6 The CWS is one of the branches of comparative historical sociology. For more than 50 years it has established itself as a subdiscipline of the science of Western history, the foundations of which were laid by the fundamental works of R. Bendix, C. Tilly, I. Wallerstein and T. Skocpol. The most important advantage of comparative historical sociology access is the extension of the horizon of historical thinking with a regional and subcontinental perspective responding to the chal- lenges of changing social, political and geopolitical realities, a new interpretation of the past of one’s region in the local and world contexts of history. In Lithuania, historical research based on it is still an exception. Worthy of mention are the works of Z. Norkus (Nepasiskelbusioji imperija: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštija lyginamosios istorinės imperijų sociologijos požiūriu (Vilnius, 2009); ‘The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Retrospective of Comparative Historical Sociology of Empires’, World Political Science Review, 3, iss. 4 (2007), pp. 1–41; ʻImperium Litewskie w międzyjednostkowych społecznościach i systemach politycznych: studium przypadkuʼ, Politeja, 2, no. 16 (2011), pp. 129–154; S. Pivoras, Lietuvių ir latvių pilietinės savimonės raida: XVIII a. pabaiga – XIX a. pirmoji pusė (lyginamasis aspektas) (Vilnius, 2000); K. Antanaitis, ‘Sovietinė Lietuvos, Latvijos ir Estijos nomenklatūra (1953–1990 m.). Dėsningumai ir ypatumai’, Unpublished doctoral dissertation (Kaunas, 2001) and D. Žiemelis ‘Abiejų Tautų Respublikos socialinė ekonominė raida XVI–XVIII amžiuje: feodalizmas ar periferinis kapi- talizmas? Istoriografinė analizė’, Unpublished doctoral dissertation University of Vilnius, (2009); Feudalism or Peripheral Capitalism?: Socio-Economic History of 204 book reviews arguments about the aspects of Lithuania’s social and economic history in the 16th to the 19th centuries, mentioned in the third part of the monograph (the economic activities of Masalskis: the configuration of physiocracy in Lithuania). I. The specifics of historical biography as a genre. Looking at the monograph through the prism of the theory of history, first of all one has to state that it is in the genre of historical biography. The goal was not a narrow and plain approach, but one interpreting the vita activa and vita contemplativa layers 7 of Masalskis which is realised in the biographical reconstruction of this historical figure, not only as an 18th-century Lithuanian nobleman and bishop of Vilnius, but also as a conduit for the ideas of the Age of the Enlightenment, through the prism of the three major segments forming society, political, educational and economic. This structure of the work shows the problematic principle of teaching historical materials which allows the author to make clear in a more articulated and differentiated manner the diverse activities in the life of the discussed historical figure. On the other hand, this structure of the work also has its price: the first part of the book devoted to political history ends with the funeral in Vilnius of Masalskis, who was hanged during the 1794 uprising in Warsaw, and this reduces the intrigue in reading the work’s subsequent parts. The theoretical methodological principles of biographical research in the book are not articulated explicitly. One can deduce about them from the author’s statement: ‘After all, every reconstruction is not the reconstruction of standard barracks, but the restoration of a person’s individuality’ 8. In order to understand better the metaphorically defined methodology of the study and ‘translate’ it into the language of science, it is necessary in broad steps to explicate the theoretical methodological principles of (historical) biographical research. Thanks to them, we will understand better into what conceptually awkward situation the author of a book falls into by seeking to write/reconstruct the biography of a personality who has become part of history. the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th to 18th Centuries (Saarbrücken, 2011)). The CWS theory acquires a comparativistic manner due to the system’s division into core, periphery and semi-periphery geo-economic zones. At the same time there is the different structural position of CWS consuming countries geopolitical and economic interaction and an analysis of their typological distinc- tive features. For greater detail on the CWS theory, see D. Žiemelis, ‘Immanuelio Wallersteino kapitalistinės pasaulio sistemos teorija’, Lietuvos istorijos studijos, 16 (2005), pp. 65–81. 7 Raila, Ignotus Ignotas, 2010, p. 12. 8 Ibid., p. 12. book reviews 205 In Lithuanian historiography there are conceptual discussions about biographical method (e.g. Z. Norkus 9, I. Šutinienė 10, and S. Kraniauskienė 11). According to how biographies are treated in historiography and what is considered a matter of biographical research, the two main orientations of the biographical method are allocated: ‘generalising’, relying on the provisions of positivistic methodology, and ‘individualising’, representing the positions of knowledge, phenomenological sociology and hermeneutics. The first uses biographies as an instrument to study social-structural processes. The understanding of the world by an individual person is only interesting to the extent that it is determined by socio-economic structural relations 12. The ‘individualistic’ biography direction, as opposed to ‘generalising’, analyses a person’s understanding of him/herself, the symbolic construction of the world, as well as the specific features of identification, while there isan interest in social phenomena as facts of a certain world-view 13. In which direction does the book written by Raila go? An analysis of the book shows that in it there are features of the ‘generalising’ direction, which are exposed most in trying to understand the Age of the Enlightenment in Lithuania based on the biography of a historical figure. Masalskis is considered not only as an 18th-century Lithuanian nobleman and bishop of Vilnius, but also as one of the main creators of the Age of the Enlightenment in Lithuania. According to Raila in the 18th-century ideology and its propagation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not an automatic process. It became inevitable because Lithuania’s and Poland’s first ‘members of the
9 Looking through the prism of a historian at the conceptions of history by the currently most important theorist of historical historiography, the German historian J. Droysen and his countryman, the cultural historian and philosopher W. Dilthey, Z. Norkus discussed the methodological principles of biography provided by these historians. See Z. Norkus, Istorika. Istorinis įvadas (Vilnius, 1996), pp. 56–68, pp. 143–149; idem, ‘Droizeniškieji istorijos metodologijos metmenys’, Istorija, 34 (1996), pp. 159–170. 10 The sociologist I. Šutinienė, who investigated the experiences of people in the Soviet period on the basis of autobiographies, explained the opportunities and limits provided by the biographical method in investigating the memoirs of wit- nesses in this period. See I. Šutinienė, ‘Biografija ir istorija: autobiografijų - inter pretavimas kintant politiniams rėžimams’, Istoriko atsakomybė: straipsnių rinkinys, ed. N. Asadauskienė, E. Kriščiūnas, A. Ragauskas (Vilnius, 2002), pp. 69–78. 11 The sociologist S. Kraniauskienė has discussed to the greatest extent the theo- retical methodological spectrum of the biographical method. See S. Kraniauskienė, ‘Biografinis metodas: dvi teorinės-metodologinės kryptys’, Sociologija. Mintis ir veiksmas, 3–4, nr. 5 (2000), pp. 78–90. Also see eadem, ‘Identiteto tyrimo met- menys: kartų identiteto paieška XX a. lietuvių autobiografijose’, ibid, 2 (2004), pp. 40–52; eadem, ‘Lyties tapatybės raiška XX a. lietuvių autobiografijose’, Tiltai, 31 (2005), pp. 73–81. 12 For a broader view, see Kraniauskienė, ‘Biografinis metodas, pp. 81–86. 13 Ibid, pp. 86–89. 206 book reviews Enlightenment’, belonged to the state’s political elite, and were able to create a cultural network in which Enlightenment ideas were conveyed to other layers of society. One of the creators of the network, especially the educational system, in Lithuania was Bishop Masalskis of Vilnius 14. The author of the book reveals the individual biography of Masalskis in more general social-value structures and the processes occurring in them. Nevertheless, in the book there are more ‘individualistic’ than ‘generalising’ biography genre features. The main object of the book is the biography of the 18th-century Lithuanian nobleman and Bishop of Vilnius Masalskis. There is an interest in the social phenomena of the period so far as they affect the world view of the hero of the book. A biography of a person is an illustration of the process of identification. Identity is not given directly, it needs to be reconstructed. According to Raila, this reconstruction has no end. The author undertakes the heaviest and most complicated task of the knowledge of history, to know the individuality of Masalskis. Coincidentally, W. Dilthey considered biography to be the highest form of historical study, the ‘peak of historiography’ 15. The author of the book, knowing that Masalskis has received most varied historical evaluations in historiography (from the moralising condemnations of a historiography sick with ‘didactic anemia’ to patriotic hagiographic pathos, from a despicable traitor to a martyr for the Lithuanian nation 16) does not try to defend any of the existing evaluations, but wants to understand who this historical figure truly was. The very title of the first component of the book of (Unknown Ignatius) appeals tothe unknowable historical reality of a person and its never-ending discovery. Nevertheless, the following sentences help to understand the hermeneutic research positions of Raila the most: ‘... the aim to reveal the ‘unlit’ side of the personality of Masalskis – unnoticed, unheard and sometimes even concealed in historiography. Raise the hem of the bishop’s mantle. Or the heavy draperies of history (my emphasis – D.Ž.) 17. For this, not only the abundant personal correspondence of Masalskis is used, but also the very broad database of sources covering the period, as well as works by other researchers on this historic personality. I have to agree with the comment of D. Burba in the review of the book that it does not have the consideration of the used sources and literature so necessary for scholarly research 18.
14 Raila, Ignotus Ignotas, p. 11. For a broader view of this, see the second part of the book: pp. 99–163. 15 For more information, see Norkus, Istorika, p. 147. 16 Raila, Ignotus Ignotas, p. 11. 17 Ibid, p. 12. 18 D. Burba, ‘Knyga apie prieštaringą vyskupo Ignoto Jokūbo Masalskio gyvenimą ir tragišką mirtį (Eligijus Raila, Ignotus Ignotas. Vilniaus vyskupas Ignotas Jokūbas Masalskis (Vilnius, 2010), p. 237)’, Lituanistica, 57, nr. 2 (84) (2011), pp. 210–213. book reviews 207 Consequently, the criteria for their selection remain unclear (note that in the dissertation there is a review of sources and literature 19). One can only speculate on what determined this decision by Raila. Perhaps the chosen scholarly risky path of not discussing the sources and literature used (as, incidentally, no conclusions are presented) was determined by the author’s intention to give the reader a less academically rigorous text of looser form, or perhaps this selection was inspired by the contrast of a biographical with a monographic narrative (J. Droysen 20)? In the absence of a critical review of the sources and literature used, the historiographical dispute between the supporters and opponents of Masalskis remains on the sidelines of the book. Raila resolves the so far existing contrapositions of the assessments of this historical personality consistently and in detail by explaining in a positive, negative and controversial way the evaluations of the actions of Masalskis in the context of the era in which he lived. One can see this clearly in this quote:
The support of the Petersburg court very greatly strengthened the political union of the Czartoryskis and Masalskis. In this place one would like to draw attention to one important possibility of pro-Russian activities. The frequent researcher of this historical period, particularly the Polish tradition of historiography, saw and continues to see in such actions by the Republic’s nobles a betrayal of state inte- rests and, applying the criteria of moral evaluations, condemns them for a second time. However, money, gifts and bribery were an integral part of the diplomatic game. Western Europe propagated this game very actively and creatively in the whole Enlightenment era of the 17th century. The Enlightenment era fundamentally changed the structure of society, the relationships between the court and the nobility, between cities and villages, so there began to emerge new rules of the diplomatic game and political intrigues. After the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 in Western Europe, long-term competition began not at the courts of kings and their backstage, but by the already formed models of two countries, France and England. This was the convergence of diplomatic art to the understanding of modern diplomatic practice and theory. The caste-consciousness of the court developed accordingly in the direction of civil-state consciousness. In the states of Poland and Lithuania, this deep process was significantly delayed. Most of the nobility still thought inthe particular categories of castes, which to a great extent determined one or another political commitment by the nobleman. To take any position and satisfy personal ambition for the frequent nobleman seemed to have been more important than the fate of the political state. 21 II. Contribution to research on the history of Lithuania’s economy However, the greatest value and originality of this book is not its genre (in this area in Lithuania, E. Aleksandravičius, T. Bairašauskaitė, V. Dolinskas,
19 E. Raila, ‘Vilniaus vyskupas Ignotas Masalskis ir Apšvietos epocha Lietu- voje’, pp. 8–13. 20 For more information, see Norkus, Istorika, pp. 66–68. 21 Raila, Ignotus Ignotas, pp. 26–27. 208 book reviews V. Merkys and R. Ragauskienė have been successful 22), but the research on the economic activities of Masalskis (the third part of the monograph ‘The economic activities of I.J. Masalskis: configuration of physiocracy in Lithuania’), which, I think, deserves much attention from contemporary historians. Why are these studies so relevant? In modern Lithuanian historiography, there has appeared a certain one-sidedness in the research: the socio-economic history that was important in the Soviet era is ignored. In rejecting Marxism, all the problems of agricultural and socio-economic history have been abandoned (for ‘more fashionable’ topics), even though there have been significant problems in this history, a deeper examination of which the limited Marxist methodology impeded. 23 We can state that Raila, by choosing the historical biography genre for the economic activities of the 18th-century Lithuanian nobleman and Bishop of Vilnius Masalskis, has not only made it relevant but also provided an impetus for research in Lithuania on these questions. As we know, in traditional Marxist historiography the concept of the second serfdom was called the refeudalisation process in the 16th to 18th centuries in Central and Eastern Europe (including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). According to this concept, internal causes (the relationship between village and estate) determined the socio-economic order and political developments in the 16th to 18th centuries in Central and Eastern Europe. The CWS theory suggests looking at the phenomenon of the second serfdom from a global perspective, emphasising external causes, and considering it a manifestation of peripheral capitalism in Central Eastern Europe. What was the second serfdom in Central and Eastern Europe (especially in the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth): refeudalisation or peripheral capitalism? 24 To answer this question, it is necessary to find out whether the term second serfdom is applicable to the social and economic order of the Grand Duchy
22 See E. Aleksandravičius, Giesmininko kelias (Vilnius, 2003); T. Bairašauskaitė, Mykolas Juozapas Römeris (1778–1853): bajoro viešoji ir privati erdvės XIX a. pirmojoje pusėje (Vilnius, 2011); V. Dolinskas, Simonas Kosakovskis: politinė ir karinė veikla Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje, 1763–1794 (Vilnius, 2003); V. Merkys, Motiejus Valančius: tarp katalikiškojo universalizmo ir tautiškumo (Vilnius, 1999); R. Ragauskienė, Barbora Radvilaitė (Vilnius, 1999). 23 Notable exceptions to this in the context are S. Pamerneckis (Agrarinių santykių raida ir dinamika Lietuvoje: XVIII a. pabaiga – XIX a. pirmoji pusė: (statistinė analizė) (Vilnius, 2004)), G. Vaskela (Lietuva 1939–1940 metais: Kursas į valstybės reguliuojamą ekonomiką (Vilnius, 2002); Žemės reforma Lietuvoje 1919–1940 m.: Analizuojant Rytų ir Vidurio Europos agrarinės raidos XX a. III–IV dešimtmečiais tendencijas (Vilnius, 1998); Lietuvos kaimo gyventojai 1920–1940 m. (socialinis ir ekonominis aspektas) (Vilnius, 1992)) as well as the research by Z. Norkus (‘Kapitalizmo raidos Lietuvoje bruožai ir etapai (iki 1940 m.) postmarksistiniu požiūriu’, Lietuvos istorijos studijos, 29 (2012), pp. 9–36). 24 For a more detailed justification of this problem, see Žiemelis, Feudalism or Peripheral Capitalism?, pp. 6–28. book reviews 209 of Lithuania in the 16th to 18th centuries (and how). The interpretation of the economic activity of Masalskis by Raila provides a huge stimulus to resolve this problem. From the second half of the 20th century in traditional Marxist historiography, the opinion based on new studies that the term second serfdom should not be used to describe agricultural relationships in the 15th to 18th centuries for some countries, most of all Poland and Lithuania, became stronger. In the opinion of the proponents of this approach (J. Topolski, J. Jurginis, W. Hejnosz, Z. Janel, A. Kahan, J. Kiaupienė) there was a continuous process of making peasants serfs here for which the period of flourishing coincided chronologically with the apogee of the new feudal reaction in typical countries of the second serfdom. These researchers distinguish the western edge of the Central and East Europe area, especially the territory of East Germany, where one may indeed talk about the strengthening of the second stage in the relations of serfdom in the 15th to 18th centuries and call this process the second serfdom, but all the rest of the range (where the entrenchment of serfdom was primary), a natural extension of the development of feudal relations 25. One can state that up to now in historiography the term the second serfdom was not applied to the socio-economic order of the GDL in the 15th to 18th centuries. However, looking at the interpretation of the economic activities of Masalskis provided by Raila through the prism of the essential component of the CWS theory, the concept of peripheral capitalism 26, one can see clearly the features of the
25 For more details, see J. Topolski, ‘Continuity and Discontinuity in the De- velopment of the Feodal System in Eastern Europe (Xth to XVIIth Centuries)’, Journal of European Economic History, 10, No 2 (1981), pp. 373–400; J. Jurginis, Baudžiavos įsigalėjimas Lietuvoje (Vilnius, 1962); W. Hejnosz, ‘Zagadanienie tzw. wtórnego poddaństwa chłopów w Polsce feudalnej: Uwagi krytyczne’, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu M. Kopernika w Toruniu. Nauki humanistyczno-spoleczne: Prawo, 6, zesz. 19 (1966), pp. 57–61; Z.K. Ianel’, ‘О nekotorykh voprosakh “vtorogo izdaniia” krepostnogo prava i sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiia barshchinogo pomest’ia v Rossii’, Istoricheskie zapiski, 78 (1965), pp. 150–80; A. Kahan, ‘Notes on Serfdom in Western and Eastern Europe’, Journal of Economic History, 33, No 1 (1973), pp. 86–99; J. Kiaupienė, Kaimas ir dvaras Žemaitijoje XVI–XVIII a. (Vilnius, 1988). 26 According to CWS theory, the distinguishing feature of peripheral capitalism is the use of forced labour (of slaves, serfs). Weak statehood from a political and military point of view, or colonial and semi-colonial dependence can be character- istic of a peripheral political organisation. Owners of serfs and landowners whose estates are capitalist enterprises producing products for sale and export make up the peripheral capitalist class. In the world division of labour, the role of extracting raw materials and providing agricultural produce to the core zone countries falls to peripheral capitalism. For more, see I. Wallerstein, The Modern World–System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World–Economy in the 210 book reviews second serfdom in Lithuania from the second half of the 18th century to the second half of the 19th century (i.e. until the abolition of serfdom in 1861) 27. First of all, historiography notes that, as in other Central and East European countries, in Lithuania, from the middle of the 17th century until the second half of the 18th century due to political and demographic crises 28, bondage was replaced with feudal land rent. However, from the second half of the 18th century a paradoxical trend became clear: there was once again a return to the extensification of the corvée farmstead economic system, by increasing the norms of labour rent and establishing new farmsteads 29. In Marxist historiography, this phenomenon is described as a renaissance of the farmstead economy, which is associated in Western Europe with the again developed conjuncture favourable for producers of grain and other agricultural products in Central and Eastern Europe. With this renaissance of the farmstead economy, the most difficult period of serfdom in Lithuania began 30. One researcher into this period, S. Pamerneckis, one of the few people to investigate the development and change in agrarian relations in
Sixteenth Century (New York, 1974), p. 349–350; idem, ‘The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 16 (1974), pp. 401–402. 27 This statement was made for the first time in historiography by the author of this article in his earlier studies. See first of all: D. Žiemelis, ‘XVI–XVIII amžiaus Abiejų Tautų Respublikos palivarko ūkis marksistiniu bei neoinstitucionalistiniu požiūriu’, Lietuvos istorijos studijos, 27 (2011), pp. 11–38. It is determined that in addition to the feudal serfdom relations prevailing in the socio-economic structure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th–18th c. there existed elements of peripheral capitalism (the continuous realisation of the remaining farmstead production and the appearance of factories producing for the market), the influ- ence of which in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth gradually increased. For a broader view of this, see idem., Feudalism or Peripheral Capitalism? However, they are limited to the period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It remained undisclosed how after the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when the conditions changed essentially (Lithuania lost its sovereignty completely, and being incorporated into the composition of the Russian Empire, became subject to its state serfdom policies, and joined the economic system of the European part of the Empire) in Lithuania until the middle of the 19th century the feudal serfdom economy intensified. Thus, the research does not reflect the structural changes in the system of the serfdom economy through its whole 1557–1861 lifetime in Lithuania. 28 GDL experienced two major demographic crises in the 17th–18th centuries. In the middle of the 17th century it lost about 48 per cent of its population, and at the beginning of the 18th century, not yet having recovered from the first crisis, again lost 35 per cent of its population. See Z. Kiaupa, J. Kiaupienė, A. Kuncevičius, The History of Lithuania before 1795 (Vilnius, 2000), p. 254. 29 See M. Jučas, Baudžiavos irimas Lietuvoje (Vilnius, 1972), pp. 103–104. 30 See D. Žiemelis, ‘XVI–XVIII amžiaus Abiejų Tautų Respublikos palivarko ūkis marksistiniu bei neoinstitucionalistiniu požiūriu’. book reviews 211 Lithuania in late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century statistically, stated that the increase in the peasants’ obligations from the end of the 18th century to the 1820s–1830s reached the extreme development of the corvée farmstead system 31. He is inclined even to talk about the apogee of feudal serfdom relations during this period, rather than the disintegration of serfdom and the conversion of the farmstead to the capitalist economy (the Marxist point of view) in Lithuania (M. Jučas proved this 32). From the interpretations of the economic activities of Masalskis provided by Raila, we can see that in Lithuania in the second half of the 18th century there were attempts to reform the farmstead economy based on the economic theory of physiocracy. Its reception in Lithuania is tied to the wave of the ‘new agriculture’ that arose at the junction of the 17th and 18th centuries in the county of Norfolk in England, which reached the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from France somewhat delayed 33. According to the statement by Raila, Lithuanian nobles, after visiting many countries in Europe and becoming acquainted with some of the most advanced economic models of the second half of the 18th century on their estates only imitated the principles of Western activities, i.e. they tried to insert the ‘pliable’ principles of Enlightenment entrepreneurship and individual labour into the stagnant corvee farmstead economic system. Masalskis considered economic reform not to be a method of improving economic capacity, but a mechanism for the repayment of his debts. 34 So the structure of serfdom that denied personal freedom and guaranteed a strict hierarchy in society, in principle, was unable to release the economic potential based on the labour and responsibility of the free individual. One of the Lithuanian noblemen who represented the mentioned spread of the economic process was A. Tyzenhauzas, who ‘intensified’ the farming of royal estates by using serf labour. Raila very aptly defines such ‘intensification of the farm’ as ‘the reanimation of the corvée farmstead system using some of the technology of Western Europe and the latest farming methods’. 35 That was the real second serfdom, with which began the most difficult period of serfdom in Lithuania. This process was extended after the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when Lithuania became part of the
31 S. Pamerneckis, Agrarinių santykių raida, p. 40. 32 Jučas, Baudžiavos irimas Lietuvoje, pp. 103–104. 33 Raila, Ignotus Ignotas, p. 171. The analyst notes that the reception of this theory was encouraged not so much by the unique view of the elite of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth toward this product of political economy thought as one of the possible options for European culture, but as the total invasion by the culture of France bringing this physiocratic idea as an integral element of this culture. See ibid., p. 166. 34 Ibid., pp. 196–197. 35 Ibid., p. 188. 212 book reviews Russian Empire. From the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century Lithuania, together with the Belarusian territories, were the most ‘conserved’ corner of serfdom relations in the European part of the Russian Empire 36. A comparative analysis of Lithuania’s economy in the 16th to 19th centuries with its typologically similar (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany east of the Elbe) and contrasting national economies (especially in England) would further deepen these observations. To conclude, one can state that in the context of the meagre research into 18th-century history, Raila’s new monograph is a significant part of the historiography of the GDL and without doubt will be viewed as fundamental research, which no scholarly work devoted to the Age of the Enlightenment will be able to ignore. The work offers many new facts and original interpretations, which in the future, according to new theoretical approaches, will be expanded and adjusted. Not only the high quality of the scholarly text, and the concise, smooth language, but also the tasteful design of the book, create a pleasant impression.
Darius Žiemelis
36 See: E.D. Lago, ‘Second Slavery, Second Serfdom, and Beyond: The Atlantic Plantation System and the Eastern and Southern European Landed Estate System in Comparative Perspective, 1800–60’, Review, 32, no. 4 (2009), pp. 405–411; P. Kolchin, ‘In Defense of Servitude: American Proslavery and Russian Proserf- dom Arguments, 1760–1860’, The American Historical Review, 85, no. 4 (1980), pp. 809–827; S. Pamerneckis, Agrarinių santykių raida ir dinamika Lietuvoje: XVIII a. pabaiga – XIX a. pirmoji pusė, p. 120; T. Bairašauskaitė, Z. Medišauskienė, R. Miknys, Lietuvos istorija, t. 8, 1 dalis: Devynioliktas amžius: visuomenė ir valdžia (Vilnius, 2011), pp. 15–34. Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 213–217
Richard Butterwick, The Polish Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1788–1792: a Political History, New York, Oxford University Press, 2012, 369 p. ISBN 978-0199-250-33-2 Richard Butterwick, Polska rewolucja a Kościół Katolicki (1788–1792), tr. M. Ugniewski, Kraków: ARCANA, 2012, 988 p. ISBN 978-8360-940-22-8
In 2012, two monographs by Richard Butterwick, in English and Polish, appeared. Although the titles are the same, the publications differ signifi- cantly in their scope. As the author himself admitted in the introduction to the Polish version of the monograph, the editors at Oxford University Press asked him to shorten the text of the book as much as possible, and adapt it to the needs of English-language readers. The full text of the monograph was translated and published at the initiative of the Museum of Polish History, in cooperation with the author (p.14). In addition, in the introductory part of the English-language version, Butterwick notes that the condensed book is essentially aimed at those ‘who are not specialists in Polish or Polish-Lithuanian history’, and suggests to those wanting to look more deeply into the problem to seek answers in the Polish version of the monograph (p. vi). Although the chronological limits of the subject of both editions are the period of the Four-Year Sejm, the author begins the Polish version with the election of King Stanislaw Augustus in 1764, and ends with the reforms of hostile confederations, short accounts of the 1794 uprising, and an epilogue in which the fate of the state and its major political players is presented. The English version of the book, from beginning to end, concentrates on the work of the Four-Year Sejm, and ends with a shorter version of the epilogue, covering both the 1792–1793 confederations and the 1794 uprising, and the turns in the fates of the main political figures. In both versions, the author pays more attention to the events of the Four-Year Sejm before the 3 May Constitution. About a sixth of the Polish book, and less than a third of the English version, is devoted to the period of the adoption of the 3 May Constitution and its entry into force, which was a period of more than a year. This decision is rather questionable, as this was the zenith of the author’s ‘Polish revolution’. The hierarchs of the Church, along with the noblemen and gentry, created a new Republic, became involved in the activities of the state administration, and actively participated in the meetings of the Sejm. Were these events not so significant? 214 book reviews Both versions of the monograph, using the words of the Polish vice chancellor Hugo Kołłątaj and other contemporaries, Butterwick entitles the same: ‘The Polish Revolution and the Catholic Church in 1788–1792’. In the introductory part of the book, the author discusses the title of the book. However, the discussion shows that namely the period of the 3 May Constitution best fits his expressed views that the state of Poland and Lithuania more often began to be called Poland (p. 23). Yet the Polish-Lithuanian state, later also called ‘the Republic’, ‘the States of the Republic’, and ‘common homeland’ (not only in the text of the Constitution, but also in the acts of the Sejm in 1791–1792), did not wi- thdraw from the political debate and laws on the question of the political status of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the joint state. Alongside the nation of boyars, there also existed a concept of two nations. Proof of this is the ‘Mutual Pledge of the Two Nations’, approved by the Sejm on 20 October 1791, on the initiative of Lithuanian envoys and with the mediation of King Stanislaw Augustus, and the titles of the common cen- tral institutions (e.g. the Commission of the Treasury of Both Nations). These trends were expressed even more fiercely in the years of the GDL General Confederation in 1792, the Grodno Sejm in 1793, and in the uprising in 1794. On one hand, of course, the title chosen by the author should not provoke additional passions, especially since the author often mentions in particular ‘the Polish-Lithuanian noblemen’, the ‘state of Poland-Lithuania’, and supports the statements by historians that the 3 May Constitution did not repeal the GDL’s separation from the Kingdom of Poland (p. 716), and notes in the introduction that ‘it should be clear that the use of the term revolution of Poland does not have the aim of recognising the heritage of the Four-Year Sejm only for the current ethnic Polish nation and to take it away from other nations whose ancestors also lived in the Republic. Regardless of the ruler, there lived one nation of boyars citizens, who in the 18th century were usually called “Poles”, the Republic [my emphasis] [also] was the home and homeland of most people and the new nations’. However, admitting that in the 18th century, ‘Republic’ and ‘Poland’ were essentially synonymous, and the ‘meaning of the words both of Poland and Lithuania changed dramatically from the 18th century’, perhaps one should have avoided the title ‘Poland’, which in the 20th century acquired an entirely different meaning, and relied on other, even new creations (e.g. the Polish-Lithuanian state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). The chosen title itself implies ‘the dependency of the heritage’, because not everyone will read carefully not only the introduction, but all of the nearly one thousand pages of the book. And yet, in the last sentences, reviewing the crucial changes in the 19th and 20th centuries and mentioning John Paul II, the author book reviews 215 seems to confirm that he is following the Polish tradition, in which one sees broken continuity (p. 331, s. 898). Based on the works of Smolenski and Kądziela 1, ‘traditionally’ the position of Marshal Kazimierz Nestor Sapieha of the GDL Confederation in the decisive moments of July 1792 was downgraded (p. 862). Even though he wavered (in the English version this episode is omitted, p. 318), he, as well as the main creators of the ‘Polish Revolution’, clearly not lacking the author’s obvious sympathies, protested at the king’s decision to take the oath to the Targowica Confederation, and left for the West, but returned to the Republic when the 1794 uprising began, in which he participated. I think that these examples demonstrate the author’s involuntary provisions because still the claims of Smolenski and Kądziela are not identical. The book highlights the role of Sapieha in the discussions on the future of cities in April 1791. The author discovers him in the proceedings of the Sejm (pp. 704, 708), because the role of the Marshal of the GDL Confe- deration is essentially omitted in Polish historiography, the importance of his position on 3 May is emphasized (p. 714). However, at the end of the book, it is stated that after departing from the Republic, Sapieha chose a dissolute lifestyle, which accelerated his premature death in 1798. This point reminded me of the conscious irony encountered in the writing of Norman Davies, that the author’s provision about a person’s character and value impose upon the reader: e.g. Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki allegedly withdrew from the world, ‘probably having eaten too many pickled cucum- bers’ 2. I am convinced that the complex political biography of Sapieha is still waiting for a historian. It would seem that in the vortex of the discussion on the rights of non-Catholics, while debating the project of the cities law, room should be found for the words of the Breslau envoy Tomasz Wawrzecki 3 and the Orsha envoy Ludwik Gutakowski in the Sejm on 18 April 1791, so that the differences between the Kingdom and the Grand Duchy should be revealed more: ‘As an envoy of Lithuania, I have to say that we do not have around here [other] than dissidents, and the cities of our [GDL] province have suffered the most, [therefore] if we only patronise some by the same way we will block the road for others?’ 4 Maybe these examples would also better explain the position of Sapieha in the discussions, and would also help to answer the question why in the cities law room was
1 W. Smoleński, Ostatni rok sejmu Wielkiego (Kraków, 1897); Ł. Kądziela, Sapieha Kazimierz Nestor h. Lis (1757–1798), PSB, t. XXXV/1, zesz. 144 (War- saw–Kraków, 1994), pp. 52–67. 2 N. Davies, Dievo žaislas: Lenkijos istorija, t. 1 (Vilnius, 1998), p. 506. 3 AGAD, Archiwum Sejmu Czteroletniego, t. XVII, fos 292–292a; L. Glemža, Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės miestų sąjūdis 1789–1792 metais (Kaunas, 2010), p. 73. 4 AGAD, Archiwum Sejmu Czteroletniego, t. XVII, fo. 284. 216 book reviews not found for the patronage of Catholics. After all, not only in the Grand Duchy, but in part of the lands of the Kingdom (e.g. the current territory of Ukraine) non-Catholics comprised a majority. The author’s avoidance of unfavourable details describing the fates of the heroes of the monograph, the opponents of the reforms, and not sparing bitter words for the 1794 rebels, apparently does not show his intentions to revise the provisions entrenched in historiography. Butterwick begins the epilogue with the words: ‘The Kosciuszko rebellion brought death, disrepute, honor, grief and collapse.’ The question also arises, on the basis of what tradition is the police institution that functioned in the Republic in the second half of the 18th century written in quotation marks? Even if the concepts of the 18th century police and the 19th century police differed, the police functions of the 19th to 21st century are the consequence of the 18th-century reforms. Butterwick’s study is a significant contribution to research on the reform of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the 18th century, the spread of Enlightenment ideas, the international situation, the work of the Sejm, the world-view of the gentry, education, the clergy, and the organisation of the Church. The results and the author’s insights and completed analysis (especially of the instructions of the sejmiks, the discussions in the Sejm) will obviously assist other research. I think that today Butterwick’s study is one of the most solid and most important investigations of the Four-Year Sejm. In writing observations of a critical nature, I have wanted to draw attention to the fact that the two parts of the joint Republic, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Li- thuania, did not lose their differences during the whole duration of their existence, which perhaps should have been emphasised more. Moreover, I think that it is important not only to non-Poles, whose ‘ancestors lived in’ the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In summary the author very consistently describes the relationship between the development of the modernising state and the vision of the Church, and defines the connection between the conceptions of the Enlightenment epoch with the dictated needs of the state. Comparisons between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and other countries in Eu- rope highlight its specifics in Europe. The questions and versions raised by Butterwick provoke additional studies, because the influence of the Church included many spheres of political-social life (e.g. censorship, cooperation between Church institutions and the state administration, the attitude to the revolution in France, the Uniate question, etc). Even though the Catholic Church is at the centre of the monograph, questions regarding other reli- gious faiths and communities in the reform years are also touched on. The especially consistent description of the work of the Sejm is associated with factors in the international situation and domestic politics which had an effect on the nature of the debate and the Sejm’s decisions. Even though book reviews 217 the reproach is still heard that the 3 May Constitution was ‘mediaeval’ because, unlike the first constitution of France, it proclaimed Catholicism the supreme religion of the Republic, after reading the monograph, this fact will look a bit different. Butterwick claims that before ethnic nations existed, the Catholic Faith at the end of the 18th century strengthened the civil foundations of the Republic, and the supporters of reform intentionally walked on this path. Their thoughts, according to the author, did not miss the ideals and values of the Enlightenment. The review of the role of the Church in the state (the introduction of taxes, the transfer to the state of part of the holdings of the Diocese of Krakow, etc) raised tensions with the Pope. Especially eloquent are the author’s comparisons between the Republic and the developments in France. The author’s attempt to supple- ment information and retrace the attitude of society towards the evolution of revolutionary France interested me. Although there are already works by historians, Butterwick, on the basis of sources, comes to the conclusion that the events in France were viewed with sympathy until the turn of 1790–1791, but later public opinion in the Republic and the paths of both countries separated, as the states, to put it in the author’s words, ‘did not stand still’ (pp. 277–280, pp. 817–824). 5
Liudas Glemža
5 Cf.: H. Kocój, Francja wobec sejmu wielkiego: zarys stosunków dyplomatycz- nych między Francją a Polską w latach 1788–1792 (Kraków, 2001); J. Michalski, ‘Stanisław August obserwatorem Rewolucji Francuskiej’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 97, no. 1–2 (1990), pp. 45–60. Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 218–223
T. Bairašauskaitė, Z. Medišauskienė, R. Miknys, Lietuvos istorija, VIII to- mas, I dalis: Devynioliktas amžius: visuomenė ir valdžia, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2011, 510 p. ISBN 978-9955-234-6-3
The project of writing and publishing a multi-volume history of Lithuania, initiated by scholars at the Lithuanian Institute of History, is perhaps the most serious venture of its kind to be undertaken for several years. Tamara Bairašauskaitė, Zita Medišauskienė and Rimantas Miknys are the authors of part I of volume VIII, devoted to the 19th century. Chronologically, the book covers the period from the year 1795, when the last partition of the Republic of the Two Nations occurred, until 1918, when the modern Lithuanian state was created. It is not easy to evaluate critically this historical synthesis, most likely for two reasons. First, in seeking to assess a historical synthesis properly, it would be useful to have at hand a few similar works. It so happens that Lithuanian historiography cannot boast of syntheses of 19th-century Lithu- anian history. There are a number of books discussing the whole history of Lithuania, but books dealing with only the 19th century are lacking. This is strange, since there are both many 19th-century scholars, and studies of various problems in this century. Several years after Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, one synthesis by Egidijus Aleksandravičius and Antanas Kulakauskas Carų valdžioje. Lietuva XIX amžiuje [Under the Rule of the Tsars. Lithuania in the 19th Century] appeared. 1 One can compare the latest synthesis with this book, but one needs to keep in mind the different circumstances of the appearance of these works and their schol- arly purpose. ‘Under the Rule of the Tsars’ was the first attempt since the collapse of the Soviet Union to look at and assess in an innovative way the 19th century in Lithuania and Lithuania in the 19th century, es- sentially abandoning previous dominant interpretations. It presented to the general public a different image of the 19th century to the ones formed in 1918–1940 and in the Soviet period. Thus, the significance of this new synthesis lies in its attempt to apply the conception and theory of mod- ernisation, to discuss much more thoroughly the most important problems and processes in Lithuania’s history in the 19th century, to evaluate in a scholarly way and to use the latest research, not only by Lithuanian, but also by Polish, Russian, Belarusian and other historians, and to transcend
1 E. Aleksandravičius, A. Kulakauskas, Carų valdžioje. XIX amžiaus Lietuva (Vilnius, 1996). book reviews 219 the chronological method of teaching political history characteristic of syntheses, and to focus on the development of society and social history. In the case of Lithuania, having lost its statehood at the end of the 18th century, this seems the most rational choice. The second reason for a critical assessment of problematic issues that may not be so significant is the danger of wading into subjective consid- erations, about how one would imagine the most appropriate synthesis of 19th-century Lithuanian history? Part I of volume VIII of the History of Lithuania appeared, in 2011. In the foreword of the book, R. Miknys defines the overall concept of the work, seeking to look at the 19th century from a certain angle of the development of society. The aim was ‘to reveal the becoming and devel- opment of Lithuania, as a distinctive socio-cultural phenomenon, to write a history of processes, rather than of events, with a particular emphasis on forms of Lithuanian society’s life, their expression, and interaction with the processes of Europe’ [p. 7]. It is no coincidence that the word ‘society’ ended up in first place in the title. Of course, the question may arise, whether, in investigating the 19th century, we can talk about the uni- fied society of Lithuania, or should still be talking about societies? In our opinion, the modernisation theory was chosen to help solve this dilemma. On its basis, one can explain the characteristics of the transformation of society from caste to democratic, as well as the impact of governments, political and religious, upon this process. On the other hand, the formation of modern nations became an im- portant element of modernisation, as an objective historical phenomenon. Therefore, the authors of the synthesis consider one of the most significant questions to be not only how the modern Lithuanian nation was formed, but also the other nations that lived in historical Lithuania at that time. The 19th century in Lithuanian history was a very controversial epoch. One proof of this is the concept of Lithuania itself, which experienced a distinct transformation. Lithuania was perceived in one way at the end of the 18th century, most often as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but in a different way at the beginning of the 20th century, as an ethnographic, mostly Lithuanian-populated region, and from 1918 the state of the ethnic Lithuanians. It is fortunate that the authors forsook the Lithuanian and Belarusian tradition in writing about the 19th century to analyse questions only of the history of ethnographic Lithuania and Belarus. The synthesis attempts to match the historical and ethnographic rudiments, which would reflect more the realities of that time. Therefore, not only the Vilnaand Kovno gubernia, but all the other provinces of the so-called Northwest Province, Grodno, Minsk, Vitebsk and Mogilev, in which the Belarusian ethnos dominated, find themselves geographically at the centre of attention. This is reflected well in the maps prepared by Loreta Šutininė, showing 220 book reviews the accurate boundaries not only of all the listed provinces but also of the districts.
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The first chapter, ‘Time–Space–Man’, written by Z. Medišauskienė, presents the historical and civilisational context of the 19th century. It analyses how in this century, particularly in Europe, the process of modernisation occurred. The specific expressions of modernisation that were formed and influenced not only Western, but also Central-Eastern Europe, as well as the rest of the world, are discussed. Of course, one has to stress that beyond the borders of Europe, these expressions were understood as Europeanisation, with not only positive but also negative consequences. Among the most prominent features of modernisation listed and discussed are the changes in the economy, industrialisation, in the life of society, the social transformation when the old privileged classes lost a significant part of their influence, new social groups, the intelligentsia, the bourgeoisie and the working classes, appeared and grew stronger. In political life, the greatest changes are linked with the times of the French Revolution and Romanticism’s entrenched doctrine of innate human rights, and the princi- ple of the sovereignty of nations that summoned the national movements and the spread of the ideology of nationalism in Central-Eastern Europe. Taking into account the experience of Lithuania, the importance of the abolition of serfdom in 1861 in the acceleration of the mentioned expres- sions of modernisation is emphasised. Two essential things are stated: that at the beginning of the 20th century in Lithuania, a society which declared and implemented the principles of modernity was already formed; while for the government of the Russian Empire modernisation steps were not ‘an immanently indispensible phenomenon’ for the emergence of these principles. The first section analyses the changes in the concept of Lithuania in the 19th century, the change of the image of historical Lithuania usu- ally in the environment of the boyar society, and the entrenchment of the concept of a Lithuanian-speaking ethnographic Lithuania at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Another important factor, thanks to which the transformation of the concept of Lithuania took place, was the Imperial government, which, having officially banned the use of the name of Lithuania in the names of provinces, paradoxically preserved signs of the integrity of historical Lithuania in carrying out the territorial- administrative division of the former GDL lands. Medišauskienė analyses in depth the steps taken by the government in this area. The innovation that no doubt positively distinguishes the discussed synthesis from other works of a similar type is the chapters which analyse perhaps for the first time, important things such as the natural environ- book reviews 221 ment of Lithuania in the 19th century, changes in climate and even annual temperatures, the infrastructure, ecological problems, natural resources, and so on, in such detail. Essentially, the material conditions affecting the economic development of Lithuania, and the socio-demographic changes in its society, are analysed. Medišauskienė not only describes the demo- graphic characteristics and trends, but also presents and critically evaluates the methods and shortcomings of 19th-century statistical data collection, as well as the different evaluations of these sources by Lithuanian, Polish and Russian historians. In the second section of the synthesis ‘Governments: Secular and Spiritual’, T. Bairašauskaitė in the first chapter discusses the three main types of Imperial power: Imperial rule and its changes, the administrative apparatus, and the judicial system. The modernisation theory was also adapted here in analysing the reforms by the Imperial Russian government at the beginning of the 19th century, in the second half of the century, and at the beginning of the 20th century. In this chapter, the nature of the domestic policies of each ruler of the Russian Empire, beginning with Catherine II and ending with Nicholas II, is described rather broadly. Spe- cialists in the history of the Russian Empire will certainly not find any kind of new data or evaluations, but it will be helpful for the reader who is just starting to take an interest in this topic to become familiar with the materials provided. Similarly, using the method of chronological instruction, the specifics of the administrative rule of the historical lands of Lithuania are analysed in detail. In addition to local government bodies such as the person of the Vilna Governor General, the offices of governors and officials of provinces and districts, an important role in strengthening the integration actions and instruments was played by the Western Provinces Committee, which acted secretly in 1831–1848, and the Western Affairs Committee, which oper- ated in 1862–1864. Another type of rule that is widely discussed in the synthesis is the confusing court system. Up to the 1820s in the Western provinces, two types of courts functioned, those which had worked in the Republic of the Two Nations, and those newly established by the Russian Empire. Gradually, the government, in carrying out its unification policies, abolished the remnants of the old GDL’s courts and rights. Bairašauskaitė also discusses how in Lithuania the rather liberal court reform in the times of Alexander II was implemented. The second government, the spiritual one, had a special status. R. Miknys analyses the position of Lithuania’s traditional Churches ‘be- tween the secular government and society’. The most oppositional and, in the opinion of the government, the greatest threat to the empire’s political system, was the Catholic Church, as an institution, and its representa- tives, the clergy. Despite its conservative nature, especially at the level of the spiritual hierarchy, the Catholic Church not only had an important 222 book reviews religious impact on society, but also became a factor in national relations and assimilation (Polonisation, Lithuanisation). The Imperial government, throughout almost all of the 19th century, sought to strengthen the official Orthodox Church, and to set it against the Catholics. Traditionally, in the synthesis of Lithuania’s history, most talk is about the Catholic Church. That is understandable, since it reflected the confessional dependence of the absolute majority of Lithuanians. However, in the reviewed book, another different and wider field of vision of the confessional situation, reflecting better the realities of the former GDL lands, was selected. Therefore, the history of other Christian churches, Uniate, Orthodox, Old Believers and Protestant, is discussed to a rather broad and detailed degree. The last chapter of the book ‘Society: Closed and Becoming More Free’, written by Bairašauskaitė, is no less innovative than the first two. The process of modernisation is seen here through the decline of the caste society and the emergence of new social strata. Essentially, every tradi- tional caste in the 19th century encountered the challenges provoked by modernisation and the Imperial government. After reading this section, the hypothetical conclusion is suggested that if at the end of the 18th century the Russian Empire had not conquered the GDL lands, the modernisation process would have taken place much faster. This is linked especially to the problem of the transformation of society, since the development of the Republic of the Two Nations at that time was influenced significantly by the ideas of social reform of the Enlightenment epoch. The chapter discusses in chronological order the history of the tradi- tional estates (the nobility, clergy, peasants and townspeople), the judicial situation, the development of local governments, and features of social modernisation. The formation of the national intelligentsia and its ever- greater weight in social and political life, and the emergence of the industrial bourgeoisie and the working class in the larger cities, became unquestionable signs of modernisation. A significant feature of the development of both the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie was national differentiation, which contributed very greatly on one hand to the consolidation of individual nations and the strengthening of identity, but equally, on the other hand, to the disintegration of the society of the whole of historical Lithuania from a nationality aspect. The etho-confessional communities of Lithuania, particularly the larg- est, the Jews, are analysed separately. The position of the Russian tsars to the ‘Jewish question’, the changes in policy, from attempts to integrate or even assimilate this community into the society of the empire, to efforts to preserve its individuality, to applying repressive actions, are discussed. The other confessional communities, Tatars, Karaites and Old Believers, were not as numerous. Except for Old Believers, the government essentially did not apply discriminatory policies to them, ensuring them the right to foster their religious and cultural traditions. book reviews 223 The last two questions discussed in the synthesis are the institution of the family and the position of women in the family and in society. This is also certainly an innovative supplement, which up to now has not been in the synthesis of Lithuania’s history. Summing up, one has to note that the book ‘The Nineteenth Century: Society and Government’ is so far the most serious scholarly synthesis devoted to 19th-century Lithuania. The extensive documentary informa- tion and the statistical data parts are balanced with a historical analysis of new problems, using the most recent research from historiography and the book’s authors. Clearly, in this work not all the important questions of 19th-century history remained untouched, but it is hoped that this will be done in the next two volumes: ‘The Nineteenth Century: The Slow Path to Modernity’ and ‘The Nineteenth Century: Liberation Strategies’.
Ryšardas Gaidis Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 224–227
Paul Werth, Pravoslavie, inoslavie, inoverie: оcherki pо istorii religioznogo raznoobraziia Rossiiskoi imperii [Paul Werth, Православие, инославие, иноверие: очерки по истории религиозного разнообразия Российской империи], Моscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2012, 280 p. ISBN 978-5-86793-956-4
A publishing house well-known to those interested in the history of the Russian Empire has issued another study in the series Historia Rossica by a well-known author of historical essays that fits well among the other published investigations of 19th-century history published in this series. The book is devoted to an analysis of confessional management in the Russian Empire (p. 5), one of the most essential problems in the functioning of the empire. The books from this publishing house both show as well as shape trends in historiography. In the context of the attitude towards the Russian Empire as a phenomenon, constantly being reformed, Werth’s investigations interest me also because of their wide geography, the author’s discussional position, and his observation of details, and features in processes. Showing the content of the reforms and their potential, sometimes only the declara- tive nature of the reforms, there is an inconsistency in the legal situation and the actual functioning of the juridical acts. Paul W. Werth, summarises nearly 20 years of research to present some of his articles (mostly published in English in 1997, 2006, 2007 and 2008; one article was published in the Russian language (p. 205, footnote 3; in their detailed bibliographical references, p. 262). All the articles are connected with problems of relations between the Orthodox Church, the Imperial government, and other Christian and non-Christian religious com- munities in the multi-confessional Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Introduction (pp. 5–13), the author shows convin- cingly how and why individual articles ‘become’ essays, i.e. how several studies are grouped into broader problems. They reflect the titles of parts of the book (in order to avoid inaccuracies, I will provide them from now in the original language). By the way, the author does not comment on why he left his later studies on the sidelines 1, which, I think, would have
1 P.W. Werth, ‘Inorodsy on Obrusenije: Religious Conversion, Indigenous Clergy, and the Politics of Assimilation in Late-Imperial Russia’, Ab Imperio 2000, t. 2, pp. 105–134; P.W. Werth, ‘The Institualization of Confessional Difference. Foreign Confession in Imperial Russia, 1810–1857’, Defining Self. Essays on Emergent Identities in Russia Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, ed. by Michael Branch, book reviews 225 successfully supplemented and consistently fitted in with the structure of these essays. He points out some such studies (p. 205, footnote 6). In the Introduction (as well as the beginning of the book’s chapters), the author presents the historiography and comments on it (including in- formation in the footnotes, which are as interesting to read as the text), which allows one to see that the studies are arranged in the broad global historiographical context. I think that, in addition to those already men- tioned, the publication by Mikhail Dolbilov and Darius Staliūnas would also fit perfectly 2, all the more so as they also show later investigations, and not only those that functioned during the preparation of the articles. Nevertheless, the author admits that much more research is needed to obtain a full understanding of the importance of religion in the functioning of the empire (p. 6). According to the author, in addition to studies analysing significant aspects of the history of the empire, attention is directed less often to religious diversity, spiritual institutes and the propensity of the tsarist government to manage the lives of Russia’s subjects on the basis of their religious affiliation (p. 5). In three parts and their seven sections, these problems are specified. The first part ‘The Walls between the Faiths and their Intersections’ has two sections: ‘Baptism, Authority and the Problem of Zakonnost’. Bap- tism of Eight Hundred Pagans’ (pp. 17–42); and ‘Arbitrators of Freedom of Conscience: Confessional Identity and the Change of Belief in Russia (1905–1917)’ (pp. 43–64). The second part ‘Ethnic Diversity of Orthodoxy’ also has two sections: ‘Georgian Autocephaly and the Ethnic Fragmentation of Orthodoxy’ (pp. 67–92); and ‘From ‘Pagan’ Muslims to ‘Baptized’ Communists: Re- ligious Conversion and Ethnic Particularity in Russia’s Eastern Provinces’ (pp. 93–116)’. The third part ‘The Confessional Dimension of the Empire’s Mana- gement’ accommodates chapters 5–7. Chapter 5: ‘In the State’s Embrace? Civil Acts in an Imperial Order’ (pp. 119–142). Chapter 6: ‘Sacrament, Law and Imperial policies: the Legal Regulation of ‘Mixed’ Marriages in Russia’ (pp. 143–175). Chapter 7: ‘Head of the Church, the Subject of the Emperor: the Catholics of the Armenians at the Intersection of the Empire’s Interior and Foreign Policy in 1828–1914’ (pp. 176–204). The mere mention of the titles of the chapters indicates the extensive geography and chronology of the research, while the articles themselves indicate the long-term and consistent work of the author, and the synthesis of material collected in the archives of more than one state.
Studia Fennica, Ethnologia 10, Helsinki, 2009, pp. 152–172; P.W. Werth, ‘Soslovie and the „Foreign“ Clergies of Imperial Russia. Estate Rights or Service Rights?’ Cahiers du monde russe, 2010/2 vol. 51, pp. 419–440. 2 М. Dolbilov, D. Staliunas, Оbratnaia uniia: iz istorii otnoshenii mezhdu kato litsizmom i pravoslaviem v Rossiiskoi imperii 1840–1873 (Vilnius, 2010). 226 book reviews In the first part, while analysing the story of the baptism of the Mari, Finno-Ugric people that lived in the Kazan and Vyatka provinces, or more exactly the baptism of some of them, attention is directed to how a confession (namely Orthodoxy) becomes, or is used as, a means for the state to tame individuals, to show authority, to make them more subjects (more information on p. 37. I think that this topic partially extends also the subsequently examined stories of the baptised Tartars [Chapter four]). Confessional identification problems which the Empire encountered after the proclaimed manifesto in 1905 on freedom of conscience are analysed in the second chapter. It is shown that, even when proclaiming the reforms, manifesto after manifesto, the state still wanted to remain the final arbiter of questions of confessional status, and was deeply involved in the religious affairs of its subjects (pp. 45, 62), evaluating religion as a guarantor of social stability in society (p. 62). This position caused tension with the newly emerging identification of the subjects with an ethnic rather than a confessional parameter (p. 63). By the way, in this part at times the unauthorised delivery or evaluation was a hindrance. In the second part (Chapter 3, p. 69), the author aims to analyse how nationalist statements were manifested in the specific context of the Church where, in the framework of Holy Scripture and tradition, national policies were being carried out, even if the latter discourse was obeyed. But in the context of the 19th and early 20th century, the more than once used concept of ecumenism could be explained in more detail. The fourth chapter deals not only with the destructive, but also, from the point of view of culture, the productive role of Imperial government in creating new identities (pp. 93–94). How, for the specific process being analysed by the author, the maintenance of religious discipline with the help of laws and the missionary activity of Nicholas Ilminsky in the Vol- ga region, are significant conditions. Ilminsky saw the patronage of local languages, the use of Cyrillic in local languages, and the training of clergy from the local inhabitants as measures maintaining Tartars who accepted Orthodoxy, protecting them from Islamisation. For the missionary Ilminsky, Christian values, or what is acquired by baptising the Tartars, seemed more important than the medium, the language, and he did not seek the dominance of the Russian language in this process (p. 101). The use of local languages with Cyrillic characters ensured the better transmission of the Gospel. Werth shows that missionary activities and confessional policies are not the same thing, that such a non-repressive posture was not characteristic of other government representatives, not becoming too deeply interested in the characteristics of missionary activities and holding Russification as the goal of the policies in the region (p. 107). In the third part, the author implements his aim to show that the secular order of the Russian Empire was based on confessional grounds, book reviews 227 how deeply the Church as an institution, and the clergy as officials, par- ticipated in ensuring the functioning of the state. In Chapter Six, in analysing the approach of the authorities to ‘mixed’ marriages in the Baltic and Western Region provinces, the author highlights the problem of divergence in the positions of central and local govern- ment, the approach to the functioning of juridical acts, and the power of administrative instructions, sometimes priority over the law (by the way, in Chapter 1, p. 35, a situation is fixed where police penalties are more acceptable than juridical prosecution). These are only a few episodes for which it is worth reading the essays carefully. The poly-confessional view of the Empire presented in them comments directly on problems not addressed in this book. This is a big advantage. One can state that, in research in general, the historiographical position of Robert Crews (2003) 3 about the Russian Empire as a confessional state is not forgotten, and with the research of P. Werth gained a clearer picture, despite the author’s insight that there is a need for many investigations to obtain a full understanding of the value of religion for the functioning of the Empire (p. 6).
Vilma Žaltauskaitė
3 Robert Crews, ‘Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia’, American Historical Review, 2003, vol. 108, no. 1, pp. 50–83. Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 228–232
Przemysław Dąbrowski, Narodowa Demokracja byłego Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. Studium z zakresu myśli politycznej i działalności obozu naro- dowego na ziemiach litewsko-białoruskich w latach 1897–1918, Kraków: Księgarnia akademicka, 2010, 388 p. ISBN 978-83-7638-008-7
The liberalisation of political life after 1905 in the former lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania created favourable conditions for the appearance of clearer ethno-cultural and political contours, and allowed the emerging modern Lithuanian, Polish and Jewish nations represented by political groups and parties to declare their goals publicly. The direction of the Polish National Democrats also began to emerge and operate as a strong political force. The birth of National Democratic ideological and political currents, the organisational structure of the party, and social and cultural activities have rather long research traditions in Polish historiography. However, the research in 2010 by Dr. Przemysław Dąbrowski of the University of Gdansk’s, Faculty of Law and Administration, on the political thought and activities of the National Democrats in the lands of the former grand duchy is a new and important contribution to the field. Particularly noteworthy is Dąbrowski’s working hypothesis, and later the main conclusion of his research, that National Democracy in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania had its own autonomous organisational structure, and their political-social ideas were not completely identical to those developed and formed in the Kingdom of Poland (pp. 19, 323–324). This rather long and single-minded scholarly study (in addition, to his 2012 monograph Rozpolitykowane miasto: ustrój polityczny państwa w koncepcjach polskich ugrupowań działających w Wilnie w latach 1918–1939) allowed Dąbrowski to introduce into the historiography of both Poland and Lithuania the concept of Lithuania’s National Democrats (endekai), and in such a way prove and reveal the complexity of the political-social thought of National Democracy, and the regional variations and differences, ‘preventing’ both Polish and Lithuanian historians from assessing the National Democratic ideological platform ‘in corpore’. The chosen definition of ‘political thought’ crowns all of Dąbrowski’s research, and generates an employment structure. Complying with the provisions that the earlier attempts by Polish historians to delineate the definition of political thought were rather unsuccessful (in fact, this provi- sion of the author could be further argued), Dąbrowski has presented a broader interpretation of this definition, which includes various forms of book reviews 229 political reflection, and allows us to bring together ideology, doctrine and programme provisions, i.e. the intellectual basics of political, social and cultural activities (p. 15). Therefore, the structure of the monograph is broad, and is dedicated not just to aspects of the political thought and activities of Lithuania’s National Democrats. The prepared study consists of five chapters, and a wide list of archival and published sources, which allows researchers from other countries also to ‘retrace’ in Polish historiography the dominant problems, trends and methodological approaches in research into National Democracy. We believe that a conceptual historiographical overview of national democracy, while evaluating also the place of Lithu- ania’s National Democrats in the overall field of research, would provide additional benefits to the work. It must be noted that Dąbrowski has mas- tered the very extensive database of archival sources stored in academic institutions not only in Poland, but also in Lithuania. He has also evaluated research by Lithuanian and Belarusian historians in the Polish and English languages. Also noteworthy is the provision of Dąbrowski not to ‘trust’ only the programme documents of Lithuania’s National Democrats, but to evaluate thoroughly the political publications, and even works of prose and poetry, the analysis of which has enabled the researcher to trace the evolution of their ideological provisions. In the first chapter of the monograph ‘The Institutional Forms of the Activities of National Democracy’, Dąbrowski, relies on two criteria to present the formation of the autonomous organisational structure of national democracy in the lands of the former GDL. First, he identifies and describes National Democratic political parties and organisations (koło Ligi Narodowej), National Democratic Party in Lithuania (Stronnictwo Narodowo-Demokratyczne na Litwie), which implemented the programme provisions of national democracy directly. He presents those political, edu- cational, cultural and social organisations which followed the programme provisions of national democracy. According to the researcher, these were the Youth sports’ society Sokoł, the People’s Club (Klub Narodowy), the Citizens Committee (Komitet Obywatelski), the Polish Committee (Komitet Polski), the Vilnius Supreme National Committee (Wileński Naczelny Komitet Narodowy), the People’s Education Society (Towarzystwo Oświaty Ludowej), and even the Women’s Equal Rights Society (Koło równouprawnienia kobiet). In this way, Dąbrowski presents a very wide network not only of the political structures of Lithuania’s national democracy, but also of other sub-organisations, stating that, compared to the network in the lands of the Kingdom of Poland, this network was less developed (p. 63). Un- like in the later chapters of the monograph, in which the ideological and organisational relationship of national democracy with other Polish politi- cal groups in the lands of the former GDL is essentially bypassed, in the first chapter of the monograph Dąbrowski also evaluates the direction of the activities of different political parties and groups during the years of 230 book reviews the First World War, and the possibilities for the formation of a common political representation (pp. 47–55). He also analyses the unsuccessful at- tempts at the time by Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and Jewish political forces to cooperate, for example, in organising the activities of the Citizens Committee (pp. 53–55), supplementing the research by the historian of Lithuania Andrzej Pukszto 1. In the second chapter of the monograph, Dąbrowski presents a very broad review of periodicals, in the pages of which the most important provi- sions of national-democratic doctrine were formed. The completed research shows that in Vilnius and Minsk (in the author’s opinion, the activities of Lithuania’s National Democrats were essentially concentrated in these cities), about 20 periodicals of various genres associated with endecja in terms of ideas were issued. The third chapter of the monograph, entitled ‘Education-culture activities’, in terms of informativeness and factographical accuracy, is comparable to the second chapter. In this section, Dąbrowski analyses fully not only the programme provisions of Lithuania’s National Democrats in the fields of education and culture, but also presents the practical activities of the People’s Education Society, Oświata, the Society of Friends of Science, the Educational Committee, the Society of Polish Folk School Catholics, and various school youth self-education groups known in historiography. Dąbrowski also supplements the research by Polish and Lithuanian historians into the participation in the elections to the State Duma by po- litical groups in the lands of the former GDL. He not only describes the order of the elections to these bodies, but also changes, and the rules for campaign agitation, and describes the peripety of the elections of Lithu- ania’s National Democrats, their cooperation and confrontations with other national groups. The creation of a more complete picture, with the research by the Lithuanian historian Darius Staliūnas on the elections to the First State Duma, would be useful, as well as to some extent the research by Aldona Gaigalaitė 2. Most of the trends in the activities of Lithuania’s endekai noted by Dąbrowski are similar to those we find in the earlier historiography by Polish historians. However, Dąbrowski, after analysing the participation by Lithuania’s National Democrats in the elections to the State Duma, has proved with facts and generalisations the validity of the insights of Roman Jurkowski about the growing influence of the National Democrats in the Polish society of Vilnius. The comparative analysis conducted by Dąbrowski on the ideological provisions of the National Democrats of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland in ‘Duma’ activities,
1 A. Pukszto, Między stołecznością a partykularyzmem. Wielonarodowościowe społeczeństwo Wilna w latach 1915–1920 (Toruń, 2006), pp. 14–76. 2 D. Staliūnas, ‘Rinkimai į I Rusijos Dūmą Lietuvoje’, Lietuvos istorijos metraštis, 1992 (Vilnius, 1994), pp. 45–67; A. Gaigalaitė, Lietuvos atstovai Rusijos valstybės dūmoje 1906–1917 metais (Vilnius, 2006), pp. 13–58. book reviews 231 which allowed the researcher to formulate one of the essential conclusions of the research, is also significant. According to Dąbrowski, the position of Lithuania’s National Democrats was different only on the political future of the Lithuanian state and relations with the government of the Russian Empire. In the State Duma Lithuania’s endekai directed special attention to the strengthening of solidarity with Polish representatives from the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and Ruthenia, the aspirations to get autonomy for the Kingdom of Poland, the problem of the zemstva in the Northwest Province, the agrarian question, and the separation of the Chelm province from the composition of the Kingdom of Poland (p. 327). As was mentioned, the last chapters in the monograph ‘National democracy and its relationship with the nations living in the lands of the Former GDL’, in which the view of Lithuania’s National Democrats of the Lithuanian national revival is discussed, the difference in the viewpoint of the National Democrats of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania about the political future of the Lithuanian state and the relations with the newly recovering Polish state, the relations with the Imperial Russian government, and the activities of Jewish and Belarusian political groups, is the corner- stone chapter of the monograph. Therefore, it is essential to present the conclusions of Dąbrowski’s research more broadly. The researcher argues that whereas the National Democrats of the Kingdom of Poland called for autonomy for the Polish lands in the composition of the Russian Empire, the Lithuanian endekai, appraising the national policy carried out by the government in the Northwest Province, opposed the pro-Russian direction of the activities. Even after 1915, when the strategy of the ‘protection’ of the Poles from the Germans became ever more dominant, some of the members of Lithuania’s National Democrats (e.g. Stanisław Maciejewicz, Marian Chełkowski) remained ‘anti-Russian’ (pp. 323–324). Dąbrowski offers to evaluate more precisely the programme provisions of Lithuania’s National Democratic Party with regard to the Lithuanian and Belarusian national movements. The official party documents would appear to show that Lithuania was conceived territorially-historically, considered as a unit consisting of all the nations living in this territory, and there was a call for the full equality of these nations. However, the political publications of the Vilnius endekai (Wacław Studnicki, Józef Hłasko, Jan Obst), and the assessment of their proclaimed theories of national self-determination, allowed Dąbrowski to make the conclusion that the Lithuanian national movement was seen as a temporary phenomenon, and not as a long-term activity or a goal to win national autonomy in the future (pp. 280–281). In the political publications only an ethnic/tribal separation was attributed to the Belarusians, and no right to their own statehood was foreseen (p. 305). Dąbrowski has determined another differentia specifica in the viewpoint of the National Democrats of Lithuania and of the Kingdom of Poland about the political future of the Lithuanian state and relations with the 232 book reviews newly recovering Polish state. The National Democrats of the Kingdom of Poland, up to the events of 1905, spoke out against the planned federal state relations between Poland and Lithuania, since both from a political and a cultural viewpoint, the land inhabited by the Lithuanians was Polish. Thus, until 1918 Lithuania’s National Democrats did not have a common viewpoint on the future of Lithuania and its relations with the newly rees- tablished Polish state. There were advocates of federation and incorpora- tion. Meanwhile, evaluating the legal form for the future arrangements of these lands, there were offers of autonomy or broad provincial autonomy, with the central organ in Vilnius, in the competence of which would be all local affairs of a cultural and economic nature (p. 325).
Olga Mastianica Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 233–238
Dorota Michaluk, Białoruska Republika Ludowa 1918–1920. U podstaw białoruskiej państwowości, Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2010, 597 p. ISBN 978-83-231-2484-9
In the introduction to his two-volume set of documents, which is impres- sive in its scope, the Belarusian historian Siarhiej Shupa in 1998 equated the archives of the Belarusian People’s Republic to the hulk of a sunken vessel, which has unexpectedly emerged from nothingness and become an imposing source of exploration, exciting the researcher’s imagination by its attractiveness. 1 The Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) is indeed not an ordinary object of historical study. For many years, its very existence within the Soviet system was totally ignored, and later the inquiry that was started into the theme provoked a lot of controversy, even about the definition of the object, which has not yet quietened down. In 1918,in Central and Eastern Europe, a series of new states were founded on national grounds, and the BPR was one of them. Their development advanced in different ways, but today the states of this region proudly proclaim in unison that they are the successors and heirs of the statehood of that time. The only exception is the Belarusian state, in which the place of the BPR in the development of the statehood of the Belarusians is still questioned, and the discussion of the topic goes beyond the limits of scholarly debate. However, this should only make research into the history of the BPR even more relevant. However, it seems that Shupa descends into the realm of BPR history not explored for so many years, having formulated his own criteria and objectives in advance. Otherwise, he may have to face the situation about which it is said, ‘the material controls the author’. Of course, if the author is determined to write a major treatise in the spirit of traditional historicism, which in the case of the BPR has not really been done, up to now this risk is less relevant for him. It seems that the Polish historian Dorota Michaluk found, according to S. Shupa, the hulk of the sunken ship that attracted her so much, that she decided to convey it in detail to the modern reader in the form of a work of such great scope, seeking to retell in detail ‘how
1 S. Shupa, ‘Belaruskaia Narodnaia Respublika i iae arkhivy’, Arkhivy Belaruskai Narodnai Respubliki, I, ed. S. Shupa (Vilnius-New York-Minsk-Prague, 1998), p. V. 234 book reviews everything was’. As a result, we have the book ‘The Belarusian People’s Republic, 1918–1920. The Basis of Belarusian Statehood’ 2. An introduction, seven chapters, a final word, and also such attributes as summaries in foreign languages, a bibliography of the researched theme, indices, maps and photographs, so necessary for an academic work, form the technical structure of the book. In the first chapter, the author introduces Belarus and its people in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The second chapter describes in detail the activities of political groups in Belarusian lands on the eve of the First World War. The third chapter highlights the genesis and development of Belarusian statehood in the years 1914 to 1917. The fourth chapter is devoted to the declaration of the BPR in 1918, the conception of its borders, and national symbols. In the fifth chapter, the scholar presents and describes in detail the activities of the first three BPR governments under the conditions of the German occupation in 1918. The sixth and seventh chapters are devoted to the activities of the fourth BPR government, led by Anton Luckevic from the end of 1918 to the beginning of 1920, and the development of the BPR in this period. The sixth chapter discusses the events while Luckevic was still in Belarus and immediately after his departure abroad at the beginning of 1919. The seventh chapter is essentially devoted to the efforts of Belarusian political figures to gain diplomatic recognition. As can be seen from this brief description of the book’s contents, specific discussion of the object of research, i.e. BPR, starts only in the fourth chapter. We can regard the first three chapters of the work as introductory in the true sense of the word. So naturally, the question arises of the expediency of such a broad introduction. The author herself provides an answer, acknowledging that her original plan was to continue the research not until the beginning of 1920 (the collapse of Luckevic’s government), but at least until March 1921 (the Treaty of Riga between Soviet Russia and Poland). Only during her work, the author, apparently put off by the abundance of the researched aspects conditioning the rapidly growing volume of the book, simply decided to shorten the period of exploration. Her motives for choosing the beginning of 1920 as the caesura are not very convincing. The border from which began the clear orientation of distinctly separate Belarusian groups to neighbouring countries and the opportunity to achieve national independence through diplomatic channels was lost: after all, the orientation towards the neigh- bours was already visible in the initial period of the genesis of the BPR, and the options for a diplomatic solution remained significant at least until 1923. The scholar’s selected caesura is significant only in that at the turn of 1919 and 1920, for the first time, the Belarusian political divisions were so clearly revealed.
2 D. Michaluk, Białoruska Republika Ludowa 1918–1920. U podstaw białoruskiej państwowości (Toruń, 2010), p. 597. book reviews 235 The author constructs her own historical narrative in not a quite traditional manner, which is enabled by the very broad boundaries of her subject, into which many components may fit. We could call the first three chapters of the book, conditionally, a history of processes; the narrative style is characterised by a slow but consistent and accelerating dynamism (in this case, leading to the modern Belarusian nation-state), but with plenty of static narrative inclusions, when Michaluk considers it necessary to present in greater detail some ideological movement, party, organisation, formation, and so on. The fourth chapter is unsual, in that it is composed of sections with quite different storylines. Here, the history of institutions, i.e. the emerging government structures, symbols of the BPR government, dominates, conveyed in a static narrative style. The last chapters of the book clearly have a dynamic form of historical narrative (history of events), which is naturally understandable, because the history of Belarus and the entire surrounding region from 1918 to 1920 was marked by a particularly rapid change of events. However, even in the last, and essential, chapters we will not find a solid, consistent chronological history of events. Seek- ing completeness, the author at times interrupts the main story by going back chronologically, including a secondary storyline. For example, in presenting the beginning of the delegation of Luckevic to the Paris Peace Conference, Michaluk decides to familiarise the reader with the work by professor M. Dovnar-Zapolski ‘The basis of Belarusian Statehood’ as the source of the delegation’s ideology 3. The last two sections of the fourth chapter (presenting the borders of the BPR and its state symbols) are the results of original research by Michaluk, and by this they stand out from the general synthesis constructed in the book. They represent a significant part of the originality of the book. The author of this review has in the past pointed out specific cases and shortages on the theme of the historiography of the BPR. 4 One such essential topic was the obscurity of the role of Roman Skirmunt’s politi- cal group in the general development of the BPR. So we have to rejoice that the Polish historian, on the basis of archival material, was the first to manage, finally, in a convincing and argumentative manner, ‘to place the dots’ in this section of the development of the BPR in 1918. However, the greatest value of Michaluk’s book, perhaps, would be its complete- ness, comparable to an encyclopedia. We would not exaggerate if we call this book simply a BPR encyclopedia. In it, the reader will find not only descriptions of BPR institutions and structures, of the parties and groups that were active in the Belarusian lands, of the major events and processes, but also characterisations of the primary BPR players, and even informa-
3 M. Downar-Zapolski, Podstawy państwowości Białorusi (Grodno, 1919). 4 E. Gimžauskas, Baltarusių veiksnys formuojantis Lietuvos valstybei 1915– 1923 m. (Vilnius, 2003), pp. 9–12. 236 book reviews tion about the marginal but attractive phenomena associated with the development of the BPR, what you can hardly find in any other historical exploration, or even an encyclopedia, for example, about the activities of K. Godycki-Cwirko or A. Bachanowich. How can Michaluk’s book be interesting and relevant to the Lithuanian reader? The historian’s chosen topic implies some interest. After all, there is no question that the relations between Lithuanians and Belarusians as immediate neighbours, both in the period of the restoration of statehood in 1918 and its prehistory, were closely intertwined and related in various ways. Thus, any study of the development of the BPR inevitably touches upon Belarusian relations with Lithuania. Indeed, these ties appear in more than one section of Michaluk’s research. For example, in the third section of the second chapter, the author presents, in a concise manner, a brief history of the Lithuanian national movement (pp. 100–102); in the second section of the third chapter, she discusses Belarusian and Lithuanian rela- tions during the German occupation in the First World War (pp. 140–148); in the third section of the fourth chapter, relations at the turn of 1917 and 1918, i.e. at the time of the declaration of independence (pp. 226–229); in the second section of the sixth chapter, Lithuanian provisions on the issue of Belarusian statehood at the end of 1918 (pp. 339–340); and the whole third section of the same chapter is dedicated to the agreement between Lithuania’s government and the Belarusian Rada of Vilnius in November 1918 (pp. 348–358). The book also more than once looks at various aspects of relations at the time when Luckevic was the prime minister. However, we must conclude that relations between Belarusians and Lithuanians remain probably the weakest link in the research by Michaluk. As is known, these relations were much more special and complicated than relations between the Belarusians and their other neighbours, which, unfortunately, the Polish scholar, in designing her study, did not take into account. When the goals of national statehood arose, the question of defining and demarcating territory became most pressing. However, in Michaluk’s work, we cannot find a more comprehensive presentation of the Lithuanian territorial distribution programme. Instead, in the book, in more than one place, without any argumentation, the statement about Lithuanian claims to the Vilnius region ‘breaks through’, as if there was no basis for them. In part, the phrase (p. 101), that at the turn of the 19th and 20th century in the Vilnius region ‘among Belarusian speakers and Polish speakers Lithuanians comprised a minority of the population’ explains the author’s attitude. Thus, for the researcher, the language criterion was the determining factor. This, we would think, is too simplistic, especially in dealing with the situation of the borderlands of Belarusians and Lithuanians. On the question of the organisation of the research, a small mystery remains about the author’s knowledge of the Lithuanian language, because in the list of literature used she refers to several works which are especially important to the book reviews 237 study by the author of this review published in the Lithuanian language, 5 but beyond the bounds of the research there remains a lot of Lithuanian historiography in which relations between Lithuanians and Belarusians in one way or another are touched on. It would have been especially useful for the researcher to become familiar with the collective works of the authors of ‘Studies on the History of the Lithuanian Revival’ (first of all, the book by R. Lopata), in which she would have found comprehensive coverage of the Lithuanian territorial programme 6. A brief overview of the presentation of the ‘four provinces’ territorial programme is given in a work by the author of these lines 7, which, as mentioned, Michaluk has declared she used, but for some reason in her research she silently went around this extremely significant moment that could have helped her to cover the problem from the Lithuanian side in a much more argumentative manner. Now, while reading the work, the impression is formed that the Lithuanians, at least until 1917, explicitly called for a revival of the GDL, and only in that year, for conjuncture reasons, without deeper discussions, suddenly demanded a separate nation-state, and thus betrayed their loyal comrades the Belarusians, and even started to claim part of their ethnic territory. The work does not mention anywhere the role of the Lithuanian politician Petras Klimas in presenting in detail the Lithuanian territorial programme during the First World War 8, although it is difficult to believe that the author has not heard about it. After a deeper study of the concep- tion of her research, the suspicion even arises that Michaluk deliberately concealed the theory backed by Klimas of the Lithuanian identity of Belarusian Catholics, because a discussion of it could have raised doubts about the validity of the very axioms of her research. Because without the Belarusian Catholics the whole object of the research becomes blurred, it may seem that Belarus as a natural political unity does not exist at all. Thus, the researcher would do better to stick closer to the position of Belarusian centrism, which promises a simpler approach to the problem, but not necessarily the most valuable for a scholar. Espousing Belarusian centrism, the author elaborates on the concept of parity, if not superiority, regarding Vilnius, of the political centre in Minsk, the validity of which again raises doubts.
5 E. Gimžauskas, Baltarusių veiksnys; idem, ‘Kai kurios 1918 m. lapkričio 27 d. lietuvių ir gudų politinio susitarimo aplinkybės (Lietuvių ir gudų santykių raida 1917–1918 m.)’, Lituanistica, 1999, No. 4, pp. 3–31. 6 R. Lopata, Lietuvos valstybingumo raida 1914–1918 metais (Vilnius, 1996), R. Miknys, Lietuvos demokratų partija 1902–1915 metais (Vilnius, 1995); E. Mo- tieka, Didysis Vilniaus Seimas (Vilnius, 1996), and others. 7 Gimžauskas, Baltarusių veiksnys, pp. 43–46. 8 K. Werbelis (P. Klimas), Russisch-Litauen. Statistisch-etnographische Betrach- tungen (Stuttgart, 1916); P. Klimas, Lietuva, jos gyventojai ir sienos (Vilnius, 1917). 238 book reviews A weak knowledge of the Lithuanian side is shown by several factual errors in the book. For example, on p. 158, the famous German politician and member of the Reichstag M. Erzberger is called a Lithuanian representative in the Prussian parliament, and on p. 351, there appears a statement hardly fitting within reasonable limits, describing the situation in the autumn of 1918, that ‘some Lithuanian politicians with regional convictions accepted the abandonment of the idea of the restitution of the GDL with difficulty’. The research also does not sufficiently highlight the role of the Germans in the formation of the Vilnius Belarusian centre, the impression is that this centre evolved spontaneously, ‘from below’, while, for example, the mentioned research by Lopata has revealed the permanent interactions of the local political centres with the policies of the great states, occurring under circumstances of constant tension and confrontation. This would merely show what reserves of exploration, at least the ‘western’ oriented work of Michaluk could still have. However, errors and shortcomings as a whole do not obscure the value of Michaluk’s work. We can state confidently that future research work on Belarusian statehood will have a model of completeness and informative- ness, with which they will be required to align themselves.
Edmundas Gimžauskas Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 239–242
Vytautas Žalys, Lietuvos diplomatijos istorija 1925–1940 metais, II tomas, pirmoji dalis, Vilnius: leidykla „Edukologija“, 2012, 380 p. ISBN 978- 9955-20-801-3 Idem, Lietuvos diplomatijos istorija 1925–1940 metais, II tomas, antroji dalis, Vilnius: leidykla „Edukologija“, 2012, 376 p. ISBN 978-9955-20-802-0
To write a review of only part of a single-‘volume’ treatise, even if consis- ting of two separate books, at first glance, is not quite a usual endeavour. However, the thematic structure of the study by Vytautas Žalys (separate volumes devoted to research on separate issues) seems to allow one to undertake such a task. All the more so, as the author himself has noted more than once that it is not clear when the other parts of the work will be published. Two parts (and a third part is planned) of Volume II of the book ‘A History of Lithuania Diplomacy, 1925–1940’ which appeared in 2012 are the continuation of a work of which the first volume was released in 2007. The topics of both parts of Volume II are different to those of Volume I, because basically, at its epicentre are only Lithuanian-German relations in 1928–1931, with the Klaipėda region (the territory around Memel) being the main problem in these relations. The author of the treatise has since 1993 been in the diplomatic service of the Republic of Lithuania, and was appointed Lithuanian ambassador to Canada in 2012. Here he shows that he is a gifted historian with great experience in completing long-term works. For more than two decades, Žalys has been investigating Lithuania diplo- macy in the interwar period, and is connected with Klaipėda not only by his published studies on the problem of the Klaipėda region 1, but also by elements of his biography. The author not only graduated from high school in Klaipėda, but in 1979 he also began his career as an academic there. The problem of the Klaipėda region in 1928–1931 in no way belongs to those fields of historiography which have so far not attracted theat- tention of historians. One could name more than one study in which the
1 The main works: V. Žalys, Kova dėl identiteto: Kodėl Lietuvai nesisekė Klaipėdoje tarp 1923–1939 m. = Ringen um Identität: Warum Litauen zwischen 1923 und 1939 im Memelgebiet keinen Erfolg hatte (Lüneburg, 1993); V. Žalys, ‘Das Memelproblem in der litauischen Außenpolitik (1923–1939)’, J. Tauber (Hrsg.), Zwischen Staatsnation und Minderheit. Litauen, das Memelland und das Wilnagebiet in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Nordost–Archiv, Bd. II/ 1993, Heft 2) (Lüneburg, 1993), pp. 235–278. 240 book reviews issue during the mentioned period was discussed from various perspectives: beginning with the book by Rudolfas Valsonokas, published in 1932 and so far not losing its relevance 2, and ending with works of the last decade that appeared in different countries 3. Vytautas Žalys, it appears, seems to be acquainted with most of the earlier historiography, and supports some statements, although the references in his monograph show a clear desire to demonstrate the priority given to sources. In fact, only in rare cases, when there are polemics with some of the earlier statements by historians, or when no original source confirming the information was found, does one or another earlier work by other authors slip into the references. Providing preference to sources, Žalys has done an immense job, not only reviewing backwards and forwards the documents stored in the Lithuanian Central State Archives. The author has also laboured seriously in Great Britain’s Public Record Office, and the archives of Germany and Russia have also attained his interest. In assessing what has been done so far, one has to state that, with such a volume of sources, the problem of the Klaipėda region during this period has not up to now been covered. The large array of sources attracted for the research has allowed the author to reveal in very great detail the relations between Lithuania and Germany in 1928–1931. In addition, he did this from different perspectives, shedding light on the views of different states on the same phenomenon. The study also distinguishes itself by the fact that Lithuania’s foreign policy is presented here, linking it with the country’s internal contexts and peer evaluations, both official and oppositional. True, in some cases, the author’s choice of which particular documents to use appears difficult to understand. For ins- tance, in summarising the content of the negotiations between Lithuania and Germany held at the end of 1929 and the beginning of 1930, Žalys relies mainly on documents collected in Britain. Overall, it would appear that the author is familiar with the documentation preserved in German archives only to a relatively low degree, although the analysis of the relations between Lithuania and Germany, which are covered in this study, would seem to require it. For example, the documents from Germany’s Consulate General in Klaipėda (Memel), stored in the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes in Bonn, in writing the monograph, are in fact bypassed. Also essentially unused are the 75-volume set of documents released in postwar Germany, ‘Germany’s Foreign Policy Documents’ (Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen
2 R. Valsonokas, Klaipėdos problema (Klaipėda, 1932). 3 U. Pferr, Die Verfassungskrise im Memelgebiet 1931/32: insbesondere unter Würdigung der Memelkonvention und deren Auslegung im Urteil des Ständigen Internationalen Gerichtshofs in Den Haag vom 11. August 1932 (Würzburger rechtswissenschaftliche Schriften, Bd. 59) (Würzburg, 2005); P. Łossowski, Kłajpeda kontra Memel. Problem Kłajpedy w latach 1918–1939–1945 (Warszawa, 2007). book reviews 241 Politik) 4. Relations with sources in this book also appear quite strange: very often documents are simply continuously quoted or retold. Žalys has managed to construct a detailed and intriguing narrative full of piquant details. The history of diplomacy and foreign policy in today’s historiography does not belong to the circle of ‘avant-garde themes’ at all, but the ‘History of Lithuania’s Diplomacy’ by Žalys is by far not assigned to the genre of 19th-century ‘wars and rulers histories’. Here, history is presented from the perspective of the people, and not of processes, sho- wing the significant impact of personalities, and the networks of patrons and rivals in which these personalities had to operate, with much attention devoted to the environment in which the activity evolved, with special attention given even to women who were linked to Lithuania’s diplomacy. If the main hero of Volume I was the eccentric Augustinas Voldemaras, the main role in Volume II was played by the quite forgotten Dovas Zaunius, the longest-serving of all the foreign ministers of the interwar period le- ading the diplomatic service of Lithuania (1929–1934). Zaunius, the only Lithuanian from East Prussia who managed to reach such career heights in Lithuania, is presented here as a solid diplomatic figure, skilfully acting in the complex conditions of internal intrigues and foreign policy challenges. In short, Žalys has managed to reveal the four-year stage of Lithuania’s diplomacy in an interesting manner. Considering further the fact that this work was written in his free time from the diplomatic service, the author really deserves compliments. The theses and arguments, in almost all cases, are the strong side of this work. The author frequently raises questions, bravely expresses doubts, states views about stereotypes in historiography, discusses both the histo- riography and the testimony of contemporaries, and tries to refute some of the prevailing provisions, for example, about the political disengagement of the prime minister of Lithuania Juozas Tūbelis. It would take several pages to list what is new, announced for the first time, in this study. Žalys himself would, apparently, consider one of his major discoveries the so-called ‘Voldemaras protocol’, which allowed him to take a totally new look at the agreements reached between Gustav Stresemann and Au- gustinas Voldemaras at the beginning of 1928. As the material provided in the reviewed book show, the secret commitment of Lithuania to coordinate policies with Germany in the Klaipėda region, made during the 1928 negotiations in Berlin, both in the interwar period and after the Second World War, was not an unknown fact. Many details of this commitment were also an open secret. In the study by Žalys, this important document from Lithuania’s diplomatic history is presented for the first time in Li- thuania not by hearsay or the intuition of a historian, but by discovering the very archival document in which the agreements between Lithuania
4 Chronologically for the study volumes VIII–XVIII of the B series would have been appropriate. 242 book reviews and Germany were written in black and white. To tell the truth, in one of the volumes from ‘Germany’s Foreign Policy Documents’ the published telegram of Germany’s Foreign Ministry State Secretary Carl von Schubert to the embassy in Paris, dated 31 January 1928 5, shows that the agreements between Voldemaras and Stresemann, at least in Germany, were revealed much earlier. In the mentioned telegram, essentially all the agreements, including those Žalys calls ‘totally secret’, were listed. In Polish historio- graphy, the historian and diplomat Sergiusz Mikulicz disclosed in great detail the contents of the protocol only on the basis of reports by Poland’s consulate 6. Thus, in this case, one can consider Žalys the discoverer of the document in Lithuania’s archives, but not the discoverer in general. Other things deserve attention. Žalys argues that Voldemaras decided to give the commitments (which he later failed to keep to) in exchange for the German-Lithuanian border agreement. In the first volume assessing the value of this treaty with reservations, in this volume Žalys firmly asserts that the treaty meant that Germany recognised the Klaipėda region as be- longing to Lithuania, which is argued in the assessments of contemporary diplomats. The author shows that the entire inheritance of German-Li- thuanian relations, which the Lithuanian foreign minister Dovas Zaunius had received in 1929 from his predecessor, was mainly associated with the agreements reached in Berlin in January 1928, which an attempt was made to overcome, both in response to Germany’s foreign policy chan- ges occurring after the death of Gustav Stresemann, and by the effort to integrate the Klaipėda region, which was joined to Lithuania in 1923 and had an element that was disloyal to the state. One can say that the rest of the further narrative of Žalys is built by focusing on the 1930 crisis in relations between Lithuania and Germany, during which the commitments given by Voldemaras were renounced, and for which the Klaipėda region became the second problem, after the Vilnius problem, in Lithuania’s fo- reign policy, and the subsequent events during which attempts were made to overcome the 1930 crisis in every way. As he prepares the third part of this impressive work, I would like to wish the author more thorough work by the editors, both in the Lithuanian language and in the topic. A few examples of obvious inaccuracies: Finland did not have a consulate general in Klaipėda, as the author states (part I, p. 109), but Latvia did, which Žalys does not note. Freistaat, translated from German, means a free state, rather than a free city (part II, p. 101), and so on. A subject editor knowing the German language would certainly have been helpful for the study. Vasilijus Safronovas
5 Telegramm des Staatssekretärs des Auswärtigen Amts von Schubert an die Botschaft in Paris, 31.1.1928, Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, Serie B, Bd. VIII, (Göttingen, 1976), pp. 115–117, Nr. 55. 6 S. Mikulicz, Kłajpeda w polityce europejskiej 1918–1939 (Warsaw, 1976), pp. 165–167. Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 243–250
Obraz Drugogo – strany Baltii i Sovetskii Soiuz pered Vtoroi Mirovoi Voinoi [Образ Другого: страны Балтии и Советский Союз перед Второй мировой войной], ed. R. Krumm, N.A. Lomagin, D. Khanov Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2012, 206 p. ISBN 978-5-8243-1663
This book, published a year ago, so far, it seems, has not attracted great interest among historians or the general reading public, even though it truly deserves it, for these circumstances. We will not find in Europe many areas such as that between Russia and the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), in the sense that both sides in this area, perhaps more than elsewhere, evaluate the recent past so differently – the Soviet period, and especially the events of 1940. For the Baltic countries, it was an occu- pation; while for the majority of the Russian public, it was a voluntary, or at least determined by justifiable historical circumstances, integration into the Soviet Union. Of course, many states, often even very close ones, evaluate the past and their mutual relationships quite differently: for example, historians in England and France treat the Hundred Years War and the role of Joan of Arc differently. However, for those countries, it is only an academic discourse; while the approach of Russia and the Baltic states to the historical past influences strongly the world-view of today’s society, for which inter-state relations are difficult. The most recent survey data just released shows that the Russian people include all three Baltic countries, Latvia (21 %), Lithuania (17 %), Estonia (16 %) among the top five unfriendliest states, along with the USA and Georgia.1 Last year’s survey also showed similar results. The USA and Georgia are included mostly due to current policies, the Baltic countries more for historical stereotypes, which are still rele- vant today. In general, public sentiment affects foreign policy ever more. If we continue to hold the realist theory prevailing up to now explaining international relations, it will appear that this effect will not be significant, since it will be believed that strength, interests, and the principle of the balance of power determine these relations. Today, however, it is appropriate to take into account also the visions of liberalism, transnationalism and constructivism, in which the tangible dependence of the development of international relations relies not only on the activities of state institutions,
1 ‘Į rusų nepalankiausiai vertinamų šalių penketuką vėl pateko Lietuva’, News portal alfa.lt
2 Z. Ivinskis, ‘Politinis nepriklausomos Lietuvos gyvenimas. Jo raida ir lūžiai’, offprint from Šaltinis (1968), Nr. 5, p. 3. 248 book reviews of the same images. For instance, the conclusion formulated on p. 132 that after the 1940 events, i.e. after the Soviet ultimatum and annexation, the first repressions in the political and cultural consciousness of theLi- thuanians, especially among the national elite, the image of the Soviet, along with the Russian, suddenly worsened. However, after turning only one page (in the same article, only in a new section), another conclusion is now provided: somewhere in the middle of the 1930s, the perception of Russia/the Soviet Union in Lithuania began to double radically, to branch out in two directions. In one direction, there is a clear convergence with European streams of a pro-fascist nature, and the total denial of links with the Soviet East. The other stream, on the contrary, began to imagine the Soviet country as some kind of lighthouse for Lithuania, primarily in a social and cultural sense (p. 134). At first glance, it might seem that the two conclusions do not direct- ly contradict each other. Nevertheless, one comes after the other, so the question arises: when does the image of Soviet Lithuania change most distinctly, when it is its great turning point? There are no doubts about the first conclusion, while the other is quite unexpected, and demands empirical justification. The separation is perhaps some what hyperbolised, made more important, and does not cover the basic highways of the cultural process. These streams, we believe, were only trends, undoubtedly also strengthened by external influence. The Soviet image formed in Latvia and Estonia in the book is revealed the best, because reflections of this image are analysed fully in the press organs of these countries. Meanwhile, in the Lithuanian case, no specific publication or other object of research is analysed. Of course, the contents of a publication are the prerogative of the compilers, but one should bear in mind that during the interwar period, Lithuania’s relations with the So- viets (due to the Vilnius and Klaipėda problems) were closer than those of Latvia and Estonia, and thus the image in the latter countries could have been dimmer and less favourable than in Lithuania. So, we are missing the comparative aspect of the perception of the Soviets in the Baltic states. The article by Vladislav Volkov, which analyses the image of the USSR in the Russian-language newspaper Segodnia published in Latvia, is interesting and quite objective, and we would say, the least ideological. Here, I would like to add that diplomatic documents held in the Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive show that the Soviets treated this newspaper unfavourably. They were convinced that it issued information that was unfavourable to them and published articles hostile to them. Soviet diplomats always called Segodnia an anti-Soviet, White Russian publication; for them it was like a fishbone in the throat, so they tried in various ways to influence this publication, and sought to make it more favourable to- wards them. However, it seems it refused to be influenced, and basically did not change its political line. Therefore, the Soviets began to support book reviews 249 another Russian-language newspaper issued in Latvia Novyi Golos, which was considered as an alternative to the Segodnia daily. Clearly, the new newspaper failed to become a real alternative, but the Soviets supported it financially, for example, by 1931 they financed it completely, and in 1932 they devoted 13,843 US dollars to its publication 3. In the same year, the Soviets also supported the Latvian-language newspaper Pēdējā Brīdi with a similar sum, and even earlier, as is known, in Lithuania they financed the tautininkai (nationals) press, the Russian-language publication Ekho, and in 1927 they began ‘a massive campaign to regain the Estonian press’. 4 Thus, the Soviets did not look passively at how their image was being developed in the Baltic states, but tried to influence its formation, to influence it in a direction that was favourable for them. But this, external impact on internal processes, aspect is completely ignored in the publication being reviewed. Even in some places, it seems, the impact of the USSR authorities on the formation of the image of the Baltic states in the Soviet country is ignored. On p. 182 it is indicated that after the Second World War began, in September 1939, the metalworkers, craftsmen and foremen of Leningrad factories demanded that Estonia be ‘punished’ because the USSR steam- boat Metalist was sunk near its coast. The authors of the book treat this fact as part of the Soviet public’s distrust of the neighbouring country; meanwhile, the same Soviet government announced officially that it was necessary to maintain friendly relations with Estonia based on mutual trust. In short, it states that the provisions of part of society and the government towards the Baltic countries were different. But we cannot fail to see that the Soviet authorities declared their friendliness to Estonia when the lat- ter had already signed their offered non-aggression pact of 28 September 1939, i.e. agreed to let in Soviet military bases. Meanwhile, the opinion of the workers and technical intelligentsia was expressed earlier, before the signing of the treaty, and that opinion had been used as a means of putting pressure on Estonia to make it agree to let the Red Army in. Thus, part of the distrust of the Soviet public towards Estonia was not natural, genuine, spontaneous public opinion, but without doubt inspired by the government’s campaign, which sought to frighten the neighbour. When it capitulated, it was possible to declare friendship for it. So, here again, we face difficulties in knowing totalitarian Soviet society, which, unfortunately, there is no effort to study deeper. Several factual errors testify to the difficulties in understanding the history of the Baltic states. On p. 28 it is incorrectly stated that Poland presented an ultimatum to Lithuania on 17 March 1939. This cannot be
3 1931 12 16 SSRS pasiuntinio Latvijoje ataskaita Užsienio reikalų liaudies komisariatui, Rusijos Federacijos užsienio politikos archyvas, f. 0150, ap. 19, b. 39, segtuvas (sg.) 35, l. 23–25. 4 Z. Butkus, ‘SSRS intrigos Baltijos šalyse (1920–1940)’, Darbai ir Dienos, nr. 7(16), (1998), p. 9. 250 book reviews called a simple typographical error, because it is also inaccurately stated that allegedly on 19 March, Lithuania ‘opened its border to Polish citizens’. On p. 172, the last name of the Latvian minister of war Janis Balodis is given incorrectly, and on p. 197 it is written that a coup took place in Lithuania in 1936, i.e. ten years later than it really did. These errors, some inaccuracies, and several questionable interpretations only show the complexity of the research undertaken and the difficulties of the start of the work. The relatively minor volume of the reviewed work is small for the ideas raised and the questions formulated, which beg for wider responses, and these are only possible by extending the scope of the investigation. A better understanding of the historical consciousness and the perception of the living memory of our neighbours would help to cre- ate a more favourable atmosphere for peaceful cooperation, and guarantee meaningful coexistence and shared progress. So the reviewed book, we hope, will become a stimulus for further research of this kind.
Zenonas Butkus Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 251–255
Tõnu Tannberg, Politika Moskvy v respublikakh Baltii v poslevoennye gody (1944–1956). Issledovania i dokumenty [Политика Москвы в республиках Балтии в послевоенные годы (1944–1956). Исследования и документы], Moscow: ROSSPEN, Fond ‘Prezidentski tsentr B.N. Yeltsina’, 2010, 431 p. ISBN 978-5-8243-1411-3
Since 2008, more than 120 books have appeared in the ‘History of Stali- nism’ series, published by the Russian Political Encyclopedia publishing house in Moscow. This series of publications differs noticeably from the avalanche of commercial and pro-Soviet publications about Stalin and Stalinism that have flooded bookshops in the Russian Federation in recent years. The series is scholarly literature, studies based on archival data, revealing the functioning and crimes of the Bolshevik system. In it, there are monographs, works of scholarly conferences, books by renowned ol- der-generation Sovietologists translated into Russian, and the latest books by Russian and foreign scholars devoted to studies of the history of the Stalinist period, as well as problems of historiography. Themes on the history of Lithuania, or the entire Baltic region, in this prestigious series are relatively rare, so they are worth special attention. The book ‘Moscow’s Policy in the Baltic Republics in the Post-War Years (1944–1956)’ by the Estonian scholar Tõnu Tannberg is the second book in the series to be devoted specifically to the history of the Baltic region 1. This book is not a traditional monograph on some problem: it is a relatively small-scale collection of six articles by the author, published before 2007, supplemented by a comprehensive set of thematic documents. The postwar documents 2 very eloquently and perfectly reflect the attitude
1 The first, published in 2008, Elena Zubkova’s Pribaltika i Kreml, 1940–1953, due to its relevance, was also translated into the Lithuanian language (E. Zubkova, Pabaltijys ir Kremlius, 1940–1953 (Vilnius, 2010)); last year, one more book on the Baltic region appeared, a collection of articles in which works by four scholars from the Lithuanian Institute of History are published, Оbraz drugogo. Strany Baltii i Sovetskii Soiuz pered Vtoroi mirovoi voinoi (Moscow, 2012). 2 32 documents from the 1944–1957 period, basically devoted to an illustration of the processes of the Estonian SSR government and Sovietisation, were published. Nevertheless, attention is drawn to the importance of regional documents, e.g. the totally secret notes of the Estonian SSR minister of the interior about the fight against the armed opposition in 1944–1953 (18–19 documents, pp. 360–371), the data of which reflects the extent of the resistance in Estonia, the measures ofits suppression and its victims. 252 book reviews of the Soviet regime to the situation in the recently occupied territories. Apparently, they did not supplement the publication by accident, because the texts of the articles also show that the author tends to let documents, facts and statistical data ‘speak for themselves’, by narrating them in detail. The published documents supplement and extend the work of the author in a certain way, as they are not directly linked to the articles published in the first part of the book. In the book, the author covers many important problems in the history of Estonia between 1944 and 1956, paying most attention to a chronologically short, but exceptional, period, the ‘new national policy’ of Lavrenty Beria, initiated in the spring–summer of 1953. After the war, Beria worked in the highest institutions of the Soviet government and the Party: he held the posts of interior minister (this ministry was united with the MGB, the Ministry of State Security) and of first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. He was also a member of the CPSU CC and the CC Political Bureau. Shocking the other top–echelon players after Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953, he began wide-ranging reforms that could have transformed and liberalised the regime. He did not have much time to implement this political line independently, as on 26 June that year he was arrested, and, according to official data, executed in December. According to the author, the ‘warming’ of the 1950s is mistakenly asso- ciated with Nikita Khrushchev, but the latter only prolonged the changes begun by Beria (p. 9). As mentioned, the book analyses six interrelated themes: 1) The mecha- nisms of the central Soviet government, by which the Estonian SSR (most attention was directed to the Estonian CP(b) Central Committee Bureau, the functions of the Kremlin sent representatives to the republics – the Communist Party CC Second Secretaries, nomenclature lists) was ruled. 2) The actions of the security organs in suppressing the armed resistance in Estonia at the beginning of 1953 are investigated. 3) The efforts of Beria to suppress the armed resistance in the Baltics and Western Ukraine finally in the spring of 1953 (trying to involve resistance leaders and persecuted interwar politicians in the pacification process of the state’s borderlands) are discussed. 4) The political changes after Stalin’s death: Beria’s ‘new national policy’ in Estonia in the spring and summer of 1953 is investigated. 5) The consequences in the USSR and Estonia of Beria’s inspired amnesty in 1953 of deportees and prisoners are analysed. 6) How the situation in the Baltic countries changed after the condemnation of Stalin’s personality cult in 1956 is investigated. The short unfurling of the book’s contents shows that, despite its title, the author devotes most attention to the situation in his homeland Estonia. The same principle has determined the selection and publication of the documents: of the 32, just two of them are related to Lithuania, and the same number to Latvia (both from 1944). Thus, the problems of book reviews 253 Latvia and Lithuania in the book are reflected very fragmentally, if broader sources were found (as the author of the book admits in the introduction, ‘if possible’, p. 5). True, the author uses both Latvian and Lithuanian historiography: he knows some of the works by Arvydas Anušauskas, Nijolė Gaškaitė-Žemaitienė, Vytautas Tininis, as well as the latter’s pu- blished collections of documents. Similarly, having discovered sources, the author does not shy away from looking into the situation in Ukraine and Moldova. The rather incidental, but broad context of research into some questions provides an opportunity to compare the situation in Estonia and other republics of the USSR with the situation in Lithuania, and is perhaps the greatest advantage of the work. Most of the issues analysed by Tannberg have gained particular attention in Lithuanian historiography, especially the mechanisms of the Sovietisation of the country, the efforts by the Soviet repressive structures to suppress the armed resistance in 1944–1953 3. However, there are also new topics, highlighting Moscow’s policy changes in the Baltic countries in 1953–1956. For example, one article is devoted to the amnesty (pp. 126–150) of minor offenders hastily initiated by Beria in March 1953 after the death of Stalin. The author discusses in detail the consequences of the application of the strict laws of the criminal code throughout the USSR: in March 1953 in the labour camps, colonies and prisons of the state, there were more than 2.5 million people, including nearly half a million women and 400,000 old and incapacitated people, and more than 31,000 minors convicted for petty theft and hooliganism, etc (p. 127). By August, 1.32 million people were freed, so local governments throughout the USSR could hardly cope with the instruction by the Soviet authorities to help the amnestied find employment and to provide housing for them. According to the data of the author, about 9,200 amnestied persons returned to Estonia (p. 150). The problems of the Soviet authorities relating to those returning both in Estonia and Lithuania (here, by July 12 377 had returned 4) were similar. Despite government pressure on the heads of factories and businesses (e.g. in Kaunas it was proposed to introduce two/three work shifts, to increase
3 The most important monographs are: J. Starkauskas, Represinių struktūrų ir komunistų partijos bendradarbiavimas įtvirtinant okupacinį režimą Lietuvoje 1944–1953 m. (Vilnius, 2007); idem, KGB Lietuvoje: slaptosios veiklos bruožai (Kaunas, 2008); idem, Teroras, 1940–1958 (Vilnius, 2012); Komunistinio režimo nusikaltimai Lietuvoje 1944–1953 m., comp. by V. Tininis (Vilnius, 2003); M. Pocius, Kita mėnulio pusė: Lietuvos partizanų kova su kolaboravimu 1944–1953 metais (Vilnius, 2009); and others. 4 The letter from the Lithuanian SSR MIA (Ministry of Internal Affairs) mi- litia board head Eduardas Kisminas on 31 July 1953 to the head of the LCP CC administrative and commercial–financial bodies department head J. Jurgaitis, LYA LKP DS, f. 1771, ap. 133, b. 50, fo. 96. 254 book reviews production plans), they avoided employing those with a criminal record, even when they were qualified, and the local police refused to register them. As in other Soviet republics, after the amnesty in 1953, crime increased noticeably in Lithuania 5. Another interesting topic of Tannberg’s work not analysed more broadly in Lithuanian historiography is the approach of the central Soviet authorities to the situation in the Baltic republics in 1956 after Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s personality cult and the turmoil that arose in Hungary and Poland at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. The author emphasises that in preparing the report for the congress on the consequences of the personality cult, Khrushchev primarily sought to strengthen his position, and to push out of the political arena the old comrades of Stalin. The Kremlin did not expect such great resonance within the country and abroad, so soon measures were taken to stabilise the situation, and the number of people sentenced for ‘counter-revolutionary’ activities increased significantly (p. 183). One has to regret that the object of this article’s research is only the year 1956, because the de-Stalinisation process in the Soviet Union was quite long and inconsistent. Only on 31 October 1961, after Stalin’s remains were secretly removed at night from the mausoleum, were the last symbols of his personality cult finally abandoned (it is not known at what rate de-Stalinisation occurred in Estonia, but that ‘last call’ was received in Lithuania. Only in November 1961 were the names of the main avenues in Vilnius and Kaunas, and the newspapers and collective farms still with Stalin’s name changed, and the monuments to Stalin dismantled). Lithuanian historians should be interested in the segment of the book about the new methods for suppressing the armed resistance in Western Ukraine and the Baltic countries in 1953. With the help of historiography, the author reveals broadly Beria’s widespread efforts through the security organs to establish in Western Ukraine a ‘nationalist’ organisation, and with its help to take over the leadership of the underground, the links with organisations of expatriates, foreign intelligence services, etc. At the same time, Ukraine’s minister of the interior sought to open negotiations with the Ukrainian armed underground leader Vasilij Kuku, in exchange for the cessation of the resistance, offering amnesty, the return from exile of persecuted family members, and so on. According to Tannberg, the regime changed its course: not only to rely on repression, there were attempts to use the opportunity to negotiate with the opposition leadership (pp. 90–98). He saw an analogy with Beria’s attempt to draw into the suppression of the armed underground process the Lithuanian partisan leader Jonas Že- maitis-Vytautas and Ferdinand Rei, the brother of the well-known Estonian politician August Rei (pp. 98–101). In Estonia in 1953, the possibility to
5 Ibid.; Letter from Lithuanian CP(b) Kaunas city committee secretary Kasnauskaitė on 7 July 1953 to LCP CC secretary A. Sniečkus, ibid., fo. 86, etc. book reviews 255 form a new government was even probed, including in it ‘known natio- nalists’ released from the labour camps (pp. 101–102). Tannberg’s book shows that in Estonia, as in Lithuania, scholars researching the Soviet period essentially limit themselves to an analysis of Soviet government policies, and the functioning of the regime. This is understandable: with the opening up of the secret archives of the repressive institutions of the former USSR’s central and republic governing bodies, historians are actively exploiting the new data. However, they reflect poorly the behaviour of the sovietised public, and leave open probably the most important question of this period of history: why did the Soviet regime fail to overcome the ‘nationalist’ mentality of the Baltic nations, and fell apart there so easily at the first real opportunity. One should note that the reader of Tannberg’s work will encounter some editorial flaws, making work with the book more burdensome. It does not have any indexes of personal and place names, so anyone interested in Lithuania and the players in the Lithuanian CP(b) will have to read all the text. The documents are published without comments and explanations, not fixting clear bugs (for example, when Lithuania’s national guard [šauliai] are named ‘pauliai’, p. 203). Since the book consists of separate articles, thus repetitions, identical texts are not avoided. One cannot fail to notice the straightforwardly used vocabulary: for example, the partisans, the ‘forest brothers’, are also called ‘bandits’ (without using quotation marks, pp. 70, 71), The ‘counter-revolutionary crimes’ in 1956 probably also merit quotation marks, as also do the politicians of the interwar period called ‘nationalists’ in the Soviet era. Tannberg’s book will undoubtedly be interesting and useful to Lithu- anian historians, in some respects, allowing a comparison of the situation in the whole region. This well-documented research, relying on a multitude of statistical data, shows once again that the Stalinist regime’s policy in the whole Baltic region was analogous, the regime encountered the same problems in administrating political and social life, and achieved similar results.
Regina Laukaitytė Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 256–259
Vitalija Stravinskienė, Tarp gimtinės ir tėvynės: Lietuvos SSR gyventojų repatriacija į Lenkiją (1944–1947, 1955–1959 m.), Vilnius: Lietuvos istorijos instituto leidykla, 2011, 510 p. ISBN 978-9955-847-46-5
At the end of the Second World War massive population movements took place across East-Central Europe from Belarus to Wrocław, Ukraine to Pomorze, and from the Baltic states westward. In this process millions of Germans, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians and others were uprooted from their ancestral homes and came to reside in new regions, many of which had themselves been emptied of their pre-war populations by genocide or state policy. The German case (whether from the Baltic States, other parts of the USSR, Poland or Czechoslovakia) has been quite extensively researched in dozens of studies. The Polish-Ukrainian case forms an important part of Timothy Snyder’s Reconstruction of Nations (2003). A number of Polish works examine the causes, process and outcomes of the population transfers from Soviet Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania. In Lithuania, however, much less research has been done on this topic. Two historians in particular have published valuable work on the ‘population exchange’ (which ended up almost entirely one way, from the LSSR to Poland) of the postwar period: Nastazija Kairiūkštytė and Vitalija Stravinskienė. The present book represents a major contribution to our understanding of these events, and as such is illuminating of a little-known period of Lithuanian history. The historiography of the postwar population exchanges (which started, of course, in 1944 before the war was yet over) has generally been writ- ten as a tragedy: violence, political repression, the uprooting of helpless individuals by cruel forces of history. The German tradition adopts this outlook in the very different works of, say, Andreas Hillgruber and Phil- lip Ther (these authors’ names are chosen almost at random). In Polish, a similar tone reigns, with a hefty dose of blame levelled at Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and in particular the Soviet state for causing these tragic events. Here one may mention the (valuable and scholarly) works of S. Ciesielski, A. Srebrakowski, J. Czerniakiewicz, P. Eberhardt and E. Paczoska, among others. In particular in Poland, the loss of Vilnius and L’viv tends to be portrayed as a historical tragedy, even by authors who are very far from harbouring revanchist sentiments. Stravinskienė’s fundamental approach is quite different. She avoids, indeed, dwelling much on the moral side of the population shift, though it appears that her basic position would be that (a) the ‘unmixing of ethni- cities’ was probably necessary at this point to avoid future ethnic clashes, book reviews 257 (b) in Lithuania the transfers were carried out without unnecessary cruelty, though with some inevitable human suffering, and (c) these are historical events which need to be examined as such, and not as painful episodes in a person’s – or a nation’s – life. Even for someone who does not entirely agree with this approach, Stravinskienė’s sober and scholarly work is compelling. The strengths of her study are many: its clear location in the historiography of ethnic cleansing, its incorporation of the quite extensive Polish historiography (while not sharing many of its premises), its profound and careful use of archival sources, and its inclusion of both episodes, the first at the immediate end of the war and the second after Stalin’s death. This study will long remain, I think, the central work on the population transfer from the Lithuanian SSR to the People’s Republic of Poland; one hopes that it will soon appear in Polish translation. The idea of population transfer (‘repatriacija’ to use a very loaded term) to achieve greater ethnic homogeneity had been practiced as an official policy of European governments at least since the Greek-Turkish population exchange of the early 1920s. Precedents to this can be found in Russian policy ‘encouraging’ Muslims in the Caucasus and, by proxy, in the Balkans to migrate across the border into the Ottoman Empire. Thus the idea of ‘unmixing ethnicities’ had a long, if checkered, past already before the Yalta agreement. By 1944 all three leaders of the allied powers – Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt – agreed in principle that population transfer would mitigate inter-ethnic frictions and thereby help avoid war in the future. But who, in the Lithuanian-Polish case, made up the target group? Stravinskienė de- votes the first main section (of three) to this question, giving us a capsule history of Poles in this area (Wileńszczyzna for Poles, Rytų ir Pietryčių Lietuva for Lithuanians). This chapter acquaints the reader with the region, relations between Poles and Lithuanians, and the demographic dynamics of the Polish community here after the initial (1944–1947) population transfer. The other two sections look at the two ‘repatriation’ periods, 1944–1947 and 1955–1959. As one would expect, the section on the crucial immediate postwar transfer is by far the longest, making up nearly half of the book. The book ends with almost 150 pages of documents in Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian, including the original text of the transfer agreement of 22 September 1944, a Polish instrukcja from the same year that attempted to transform the provisions of this agreement into bureaucratic reality, and statistics on numbers of persons receiving permission to emigrate in the second period. The process of ‘repatriation’ was extremely complicated, involving questions of property, political allegiance, national identity, administrative practices, and logistics of moving tens of thousands of individuals and their property over significant distances. All of this took place in 1944–1947 on the background of chaotic conditions where documentation was not 258 book reviews always available (or had been destroyed), family members were often not in one place, and no one could be entirely sure what tomorrow would bring. And, as Stravinskienė shows, from the very start, the 1944 treaty (sutartis/układ) was open to different interpretations, in particular regarding just who was allowed to be repatriated. The agreement stated that Poles and Jews who had been Polish citizens on 17 September 1939 could apply for repatriation. The two parallel administrations – Lithuanian and Polish – interpreted this seemingly clear statement in quite different ways, the Lithuanian more narrowly (in particular aiming to avoid the emigration of ethnic Lithuanians) and the Poles more broadly (essentially looking the other way even when individuals could not prove Polish ethnicity or Polish citizenship in September 1939). Further complications involved exactly how much and what kind of property could be taken along. Finally, what was to be done when individuals signed up for repatriation but then failed to show up for their assigned ešalonas? Should they be allowed a place on a later train, or should they be regarded as having forfeited their chance to leave the Lithuanian SSR? Stravinskienė shows in detail just how the bureaucracies were put in place, decisions on these various questions were reached, and how the various complications were dealt with. To start with, however, she considers the basic issue of how individuals decided whether to stay or to leave. In 1944 and even into 1945, after all, the Polish underground remained active in the region. Its position was initially very opposed to the population transfer, and only gradually, forced along by brutal reality and the realisation that Vilnius and its surroundings would in fact not fall to Poland, acquiesced. Similar attitudes were present among the Polish Catholic clergy. Stravinskienė also provides a fascinating look into how the Soviet ‘security services’ viewed the process of repatriation. Once the decision was made to leave, one entered a confusing bu- reaucratic process to get the necessary papers, stamps, and permissions. Stravinskienė well documents this complicated process of registration, getting assigned to an ešalonas, obtaining permission (or not …) to take along property of various kinds, figuring out when the ešalonas would leave (there were, predictably, delays), and what happened when registered individuals (or members of their families) failed to show up for the assigned train. Besides individuals, there was the issue of exporting cultural goods, like books and art works. Some of these belonged to individuals, and others to institutions like the library of Vilnius University (Uniwersytet Stefana Batorego in the interwar period). No other work gives such a clear idea of these complicated issues, decisions, and outcomes. Compared to the rather chaotic – but given the circumstances, quite successful – 1944–1947 ‘repatriation’, the population transfer of a decade later was much more orderly and considerably smaller in scale. Now, ten years after the war, both sides could fall back on well-established bureaucra- book reviews 259 cies and practices (one should not forget that both the Lithuanian SSR and the Polish Republic in 1944–1947 had at best makeshift administrations). In essence, this second repatriation allowed individuals who ‘should have’ or ‘could have’ left right after the war a second chance to leave. Nearly 50,000 individuals left the LSSR; strikingly, over one third of these were children (up to age 16, pp. 270–271). This time the provisions for taking personal property were considerably less generous than in the first ‘repa- triation’, possibly because the Soviet side no longer felt the need to ‘entice’ local Poles to sign up for departure. On the whole, this repatriation went forward more successfully and with less chaos than the first. This is an excellent book, well-researched, interesting, and scholarly. One does not, however, have to accept all of its conclusions. To my mind, Stravinskienė tries a bit too hard to shift blame for the repatriation decisions on Moscow, when the Lithuanian communists (and not just the Muscovite viceroy, Mikhail Suslov) were by all evidence we have quite happy to be rid of the pesky Polish element (especially in Vilnius). In fact, the quite different processes of ‘repatriation’ of Poles from the Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian SSRs are one argument against stressing decisions made in Moscow too strongly. Still, one should not end on a negative note, in particular on such a controversial topic. Vitalija Stravinskienė’s book is a very serious contribution to our understanding of the Lithuanian-Polish population transfers of the post-war period; no other work in any language provides a more comprehensive account of these events. One hopes that the book will be published in translation to increase its impact on foreign historians.
Theodore R. Weeks Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 260–263
Andres Kasekamp, A History of the Baltic States, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 251 p. ISBN 978-0-230-01940-9
Born in Canada, a University of Toronto graduate who completed a his- tory PhD in London, Andres Kasekamp, who is currently working at the University of Tartu, faced the daunting task of preparing in the English language a short review of the past of three countries situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Modern Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are the after effects of the geopolitical changes and of three different national self-determinations in the early 20th century, having had most similarities in the 20th century. In the earlier period, the term ‘Baltic States’ was hardly applicable in general. Up to now, there have been many cultural differences in the societies of the three states. In addition, Lithuania had statehood in the 13th–18th centuries, while Latvia and Estonia became political actors only after the First World War. Considering all this, one could say that the book published in the ‘Palgrave Essential Histories’ series will further strengthen in the English-speaking environment the partially incorrect approach towards the three states on the Baltic Sea as a single historical region, the ‘Baltic States’. This is an approach characteristic of large countries, whatever they may be, the US, Germany or Russia, and every historian satisfied with such a perspective of the mental map, and undertaking the task of writing the history of the ‘Baltic States’, has again and again to resolve the various dilemmas of what constitutes this construct in different historical epochs. For example, in the interwar period, Finland was also usually attributed to this region. The Kasekamp book, published in 2010, was also translated into the Polish language in 2013 1. So in this review, one has to ask the question, what will not only an English-speaking, but also a Polish-speaking audience learn about the ‘Baltic states’ from this book? In the introduction, the author writes that ‘This book provides a concise survey of developments, on the territory comprising the present-day countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithu- ania from the end of the last ice age to the present’ (p. viii). Indeed, the book consists of eight chapters, arranged in chronological order; however, half of them (the greater part of the volume of the book) are devoted to the period after 1917. As the author is a researcher of 20th-century issues, such a structure of the publication is not surprising. In addition, the great attention devoted to the last century, it seems, will also likely be associated
1 A. Kasekamp, Historia państw bałtyckich (Warsaw, 2013). book reviews 261 with the specifics of the ‘Palgrave Essential Histories’ series – in its printed historical overviews of various countries, the 20th century always attracts special attention. The author ends his narrative with issues from 2009. The Kasekamp narrative is correct, touching the region’s most im- portant historical events. As the author himself noted, while preparing the book ‘The greatest challenge has been to write an integrated, comparative history, rather than the parallel histories of three separate countries’ (p. x). In many parts of the text, the different social and political subjects of the region are actually compared, and their similarities and differences are revealed, although it would perhaps be too bold to say that Kasekamp’s review is ‘comparative history’. The whole narrative is characterised by a degree of wandering between political, social and economic history. The first chapter ‘Europe’s Last Pagans’ is the history of the first inhabitants, tribes and their conquest, presenting the Lithuanian tribes as the only ones that managed to resist the conquerors, to unite and to achieve statehood. The second chapter ‘Lithuania’s Expansion and Medieval Livonia’ provides the political his- tory of Lithuania and Livonia, with a fragmentary description of social relations, more applicable to Livonia. The third chapter, devoted to the period 1561–1795, is actually the political history of ‘wars and rulers’. In the chapter of the book devoted to ‘The Long 19th Century’, not only political, but also social changes are included, but for the greater part the chapter is a narrative about the formation of national cultures, national movements and the policies of the Russian Empire. Wider angles, into which, in addition to political and social, economic and cultural changes are included, are characteristic of the remaining chapters. One could say that in writing about the 20th century, the author takes the position of an advocate of the Baltic countries’ version of history, i.e. he shows understandings and evaluations of 20th-century events which prevail in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. An extraordinarily large area here is devoted to discussing the progress that occurred between the wars, the history of the abolition of independence, of the terror, the deportations and extermination of the population. The book tries to explain what the expectations of the inhabitants of the ‘Baltic states’ were, and the logic of the actions during the Second World War, and a large part of chapters VI and VII is, of course, devoted to demonstrating the various forms of opposition to the regime and protest exhibited in 1940–1991. Most clearly, the legitimation of a hegemonised version of contemporary history is pro- vided in chapter VIII, which not only has the title ‘Return to the West’, but also a section ‘Return to Europe’. Knowing the English, German and Estonian languages, the author relies in his book essentially on literature only in these languages. For Kasekamp, as for any other author, this had to be a bit of a problem, because far from all the major investigations by historians in Estonia, Latvia and 262 book reviews Lithuania in recent decades are published in these languages. Not know- ing the Latvian and Lithuanian languages, the author was unable to gain access to the latest research. However, one could not fail to notice that in the preparation of the book, many articles and even books by historians and archaeologists from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia published in the last few decades in English and German are also absent. The lack of access to relevant literature hindered the author in rare cases when the book discusses different historiographical assessments. For example, p. 25 states that historians in Lithuania and Poland are still quar- relling over the importance of the Union of Krėva, although a consensus on this issue seems to have been reached in recent decades. Similarly, on p. 44, in discussing the Union of Lublin, it states that ‘Polish historians have mostly celebrated the Union as a milestone for the flowering of the Polish state, while Lithuanian historians have usually bemoaned the Union as heralding the eclipse of Lithuania’. This division of historians is hardly still relevant, and the author in this case is likely to have been misled by the book by the cultural scholar and poet A. Tereškinas, published in English, to which a reference is made. Later, on p. 64, commenting on the 1791 constitution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Kasekamp writes that ‘It also ended the dualistic nature of the state, eliminating Lithuania’s independent status’, although the 20 October 1791 amendment of the con- stitution is usually evaluated as a means for the maintenance of this status. The insufficient absorption in individual problems and historiography becomes clear in not fully measured assertions. The Jewish ‘Pale of Set- tlement’ in the Russian Empire did not include all of the former territory of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as the author states on p. 73, because the Kingdom of Poland was not included within its borders. Jews in the USSR were not the only group that was allowed to emigrate from the country (p. 160), because, for example, at the end of the 1950s, former German citizens were also allowed to leave the USSR. Jonas Basanavičius was just one of the several initiators of the newspaper Auszra, but not the only one (p. 82). Kasekamp basically explains the participation of lo- cal residents in the Holocaust on p. 135 by the ‘double genocide’ theory (Jews were killed because they were communists, executors of the Soviet occupying authorities and of the deportations), which has been criticised for a long time. Equally precipitate is another sentence in which Kasekamp provides one of the reasons, in his opinion, for the partisan resistance to the Soviet regime in Lithuania in 1944–1953: ‘Only in Lithuania had there been any notable organised resistance during the Nazi occupation, and it was relatively easy for the partisans to reorient themselves to fighting the other occupier’ (p. 142). Although in the greater part of the book the author, as already men- tioned, provides a rather correct narrative, in places, excessively reduced statements still occur. Such, for example, is the whole sentence on p. 39: book reviews 263 ‘The Protestant Reformation against the practices of the papacy was launched by Martin Luther in Saxony in 1517.’ One could also probably argue with the author’s evaluation that ‘after the death of Stalin in 1953 [...] Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian societies had been psychologically pummelled into submission and a permanent state of fear’ (p. 147). In conclusion, one can say that for the reader not knowing anything about the so-called three ‘Baltic States’, Kasekamp’s book will be a good guide for a first acquaintance. The narrative presented in this guide would have been much stronger if there had been greater attention to works by historians from the three countries, and to individual historiographical issues. Kasekamp’s narrative is dominated by political history, but this does not reach the level of a multi-national history. However, for those who continue to seek to understand the eastern edge of the Baltic Sea as the ‘Baltic States’, this book will provide an initial understanding of the fact that the region of the ‘Baltic States’ is far from being an integral formation that only had historical similarities. Vasilijus Safronovas Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 264–268
Jacek Sobczak, Potomkowie Lecha i Giedimyna. Stosunki polityczne mię- dzy Litwą i Polską w pierwszych latach odrodzenia państwa litewskiego, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe WNPiD UAM, 2009, 182 p. ISBN 978- 8360-677-76-6 The law professor Jacek Sobczak is not just the author of a few articles devoted to questions of the legal regulation of national minorities, but has also written works on Lithuanian problems. 1 In his most recent study, published in 2009, the Polish scholar discusses various aspects of the re- lations between Lithuanians and Lithuania’s Poles, and between Lithuania and Poland: the question of Polish autonomy, the reactions of the Polish government to the Lithuanian declaration of independence, the first attempts to develop political contacts, and later diplomatic relations. However, the focus of the book is devoted to the declaration by Lithuania and Poland in 1992, as well as the circumstances of the signing of the treaty between the two states in 1994, and analyses in detail the contents of these documents. The author describes the negotiations on the declaration and the pro- cess of the treaty, and the more important moments in the negotiations, consistently enough. In general, these parts of the book will certainly be useful for a historian of diplomacy, analysing Lithuanian-Polish relations from 1990 until 1994, i.e. until the signing and ratification of the treaty. It will be useful primarily because the author discusses in detail how the agreements were achieved, and how the negotiation process occurred. However, Sobczak’s book is not only interesting for this. It is important that the author tries to figure out what political considerations influenced the dynamics of the negotiations, what objections, difficulties and obstacles the politicians and diplomats of the states had to overcome. All of these issues are discussed in the largest section of the book ‘The Road Towards the Polish-Lithuanian Treaty’ 2. Before discussing some of the more impor-
1 J. Sobczak, Studia nad wyborami prezydenckimi i parlamentarnymi na Litwie i Białorusi (Poznań, 1997); idem, ‘Stosunki polityczne między Polską a Litwą’, Zbliżanie się Wschodu i Zachodu. Studia – analizy – rozpoznania, ed. P. Kra szewski, T. Miluski, T. Wallas, (Poznań, 2000); idem, ‘Polityka radziecka wobec Litwy. Od deklaracji o suwerenności państwowej z 18 maja 1989 roku do uznania niepodległości Litwy przez ZSRR 6 września 1991 roku’, Sprawy wschodnie, vol. 1, (2003), pp. 27–48. 2 The political circumstances of the signing of the Lithuania–Poland treaty are discussed in Lithuanian historiography: V. Sirutavičius, ‘Suvalkų sutarties vertinimų vaidmuo, rengiant Lietuvoje 1994 m. Lietuvos ir Lenkijos sutartį/Rola ocen umowy suwalskiej w przygotowywaniu umowy między Litwą a Polską w 1994 r.’, Suvalkų sutartis faktai ir interpretacijos/Umowa Suwalska fakty i intrepretacje, ed. Č. Lau- rinavičius (Vilnius, 2012), pp.182–213, 411–447. book reviews 265 tant, and in some cases doubtful, insights of Sobczak: a few more general observations. In general, Central and East European countries, by signing treaties ‘for friendly relations’ and ‘good neighbourly cooperation’, laid the foundations for a new security architecture in the region. This process, in the most general sense, was influenced by Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalisation policies, the process of the Soviet republics obtaining sovereignty, and, ultimately, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decision of the West to expand to the east. Thus, you have to agree with the author that the Lithuanian-Polish intergovernmental agreement was one of the conditions for integration into Western structures. Another conclusion is also right: the Lithuanian-Polish international agreement was made possible on the basis of diplomacy, based on difficult compromises. Such an assessment of the treaty, presented at the end of the book, is the best response to the question how this agreement is significant today to both countries. However, from some general observations, let us move on to a discussion of more specific subjects. Chronologically, the author begins the ‘road’ to the ‘Friendly relations and good neighbourly cooperation’ treaty between Lithuania and Poland from a discussion of the Memorandum ‘On the needs of the Polish mino- rity in the Republic of Lithuania’ of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland on 26 November 1990. In the memorandum, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by the way, at the ‘request’ of the Lithuanian foreign minister Algirdas Saudargas, presented the needs of the Polish minority in Lithuania. According to Sobczak, the Lithuanians failed to evaluate the document correctly: allegedly, it can be interpreted as a ‘step’ towards the recognition of Lithuania de jure (p. 84). It would be difficult to agree explicitly with these observations. The political circumstances of the emergence of the document are not entirely clear. Judging from the text of the memorandum, one can totally reasonably claim that it came from the initiative of Saudargas. 3 Perhaps, the document was used in the preparation of the Lithuanian and Polish declaration of friendly relations. However, for Vilnius, the memorandum was important first of all because in it the provision that the Polish government ‘does not intend to support the creation of a Polish territorial unit’ was formulated in a rather clear manner. So, the Lithuanians could use the Memorandum as a means to suppress the political ambitions of Polish autonomists in Lithuania. The document was confidential, but at the beginning of 1991 it was disclosed in the journal Lithuania, edited by Leon Brodowski, and published by the Polish Lovers of Lithuania Club (Ogólnopolski Klub Miłośników Litwy). Unfortunately, we do not know the circumstances of its disclosure. Ho- wever, one can assert fairly reasonably that after the publication of the memorandum the tension between Lithuanians and Lithuania’s Poles did not
3 Lietuvos ir Lenkijos santykiai 1917–1994 (Vilnius, 1998), p. 175. 266 book reviews diminish, but on the contrary, could only increased even more: Lithuanian radicals interpreted the memorandum as proof of Poland’s interference in Lithuania’s internal affairs, while Polish radicals explained that the new Polish government, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was ‘betraying’ its compatriots in Lithuania. Practically all authors investigating Lithuanian-Polish relations after March 1990 agree that the signing of the ‘friendly relations declaration’ was an important period in relations between the states. Lithuanian sour- ces would allow one to declare that the states agreed on the necessity for signing the declaration as early as December 1990. It was also agreed that the declaration could be similar to the agreement between Poland and Ukraine, signed in October of the same year. Of course, according to the Lithuanian negotiators, ‘the status of Lithuania differs [from that of Ukrai- ne], and this circumstance should be taken into account [in preparing the declaration]’. The Poles agreed with this position 4. Drafts of the agreement were exchanged in February 1991. Another circumstance is also important, which the author of the study, unfortunately, ignored: the Lithuanians, along with the draft of the declaration, presented to the Poles drafts of several other agreements (an agreement on national minorities, an agreement on economic cooperation, and drafts of the statutes of interest bureaus). The Lithuanian government, by offering such a ‘package’ of agreements, sought the most important goal, to extract recognition from Warsaw. If Poland had signed a ‘cross-border agreement on ethnic minorities’ with Lithuania, and agreed to the creation of ‘interest bureaus’, i.e., in a sense, analogues of embassies, then she would have directly recognised Lithuania de facto. One should also note that the minister of foreign affairs, K. Skubiszewski, for a variety of reasons, declined to sign these agreements. In general, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with regard to its eastern neighbours, took the so-called two-track policy, i.e., it supported the goal of statehood of the neighbouring states, but also tried to retain good relations with Moscow. So Warsaw did not hurry to recognise the statehood of Lithuania, but supported the recovery of statehood process. On the initiative of Minister Skubiszewski on 12 March 1990, the Polish government issued a statement basically supporting the restoration of Lithu- anian statehood. Of course, this, like the resolutions passed by other Polish state institutions, the Senate, were documents of a more moral-political nature. On the other hand, one has to admit that in Lithuania there was not always an adequate response to these statements. On 24 March 1990, it was stated in the Lithuanian Supreme Council that the documents adopted by the Polish Senate and Parliament, supporting the goal of Lithuania’s independence, were nothing less than ‘the recognition of the independence of Lithuania’. It is understandable that some deputies, finding themselves
4 V. Sirutavičius, ‘Suvalkų sutarties’, p.186. book reviews 267 in an emergency situation, wanted very much to present their desires as an actual fact ... Still extending a little the issue of Lithuania’s ‘recognition’, in the opinion of Sobczak, on the other hand, not all Polish politicians maintai- ned the cautious, pragmatic course with regard to Lithuania characteristic of Minister Skubiszewski. Some Polish politicians, such as the Marshal and organisation ‘Wspólnota Polska’ president, Andrzej Stelmachowski, in March 1991, promised the highest Lithuanian politicians that Poland would be the first to recognise Lithuania’s independence (p. 89). Of course, it remains unclear whether these statements by the politician were ‘free im- provisation’ or testified to differences existing in the Polish government’s elite on the case of Lithuania’s recognition. Or maybe, by such promises, A. Stelmachowski, the leader of an organisation that sponsored compatriots living outside Poland, sought to obtain alleviations for Polish autonomists with whom he had rather close contacts? Be that as it may, Poland was not the first to recognise Lithuania. Even more after the August coup, the de jure recognition and the esta- blishment of diplomatic relations, tensions arose between the countries, and Lithuania, eventually, became the last of Poland’s neighbours with which Warsaw signed an international agreement. It is usually stated in literature that the main reason for this was the deterioration in the situation of the Polish minority. For in September 1991, the councils of the Vilnius and Šalčininkai districts were dissolved, and direct rule was imposed in the districts. The author of the book discusses widely the consequences of direct management on the Polish community. In this case, one would have to admit that in Lithuania the question was practically not examined at all. After signing the declaration, in addition to the problem of ethnic minorities, another important circumstance, the different treatment of the historical past, conditioned the dynamics of inter-state relations and the negotiation process for the treaty. (Of course, as the author notes, despite the various political tensions in bilateral relations, the parties were usually able to agree on a series of practical questions of a pragmatic nature.) Thus, in Lithuanian society, among politicians, especially of the right, the goal became to demand from Poland in a treaty a condemnation of Żeligowski’s aggression, and thus reinforce the idea that Vilnius belongs to Lithuania according to the Suwalki agreement. One can understand that Poland viewed the historical events relating to the recognition of Vilnius and the so-called breaking of the Suwalki treaty differently. We would think that Sobczak, relying basically on the works of his fellow historians and politicians, not only in detail, but also objectively, discusses the efforts of both countries’ diplomats and politicians to find a compromise. It is known that the essence of the compromise was such: the Lithuanians gave up the assessment of Żeligowski’s aggression, but in the treaty ‘both sides solemnly acknowledge one another’s current territories with the capitals 268 book reviews of Vilnius and Warsaw now and in the future, regardless of the process of the formation of their borders in the past.’ Sobczak’s book discusses not only various aspects of the relations between Lithuanians and Poles, and Lithuania and Poland. The author brief- ly reviews the circumstances of the restoration of statehood, the relations between Vilnius and the Kremlin, and so on. Therefore, to finish, here are several observations about how the author of the study, in the most general sense, understands the process of the restoration of Lithuania’s statehood. In Sobczak’s opinion, after the 11 March Act of Independence the state of Lithuania was in statu nascendi, i.e., in the stage of the formation of an embryo. Thus, it is no coincidence that in the book the highest institution of Lithuania’s government at that time – the Council – is continued to be called the ‘Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR’, though, on 11 March a law was passed ‘On the name of the state, and the coat of arms.’ According to it ‘the official name of the state of Lithuania’ became the ‘Republic of Lithuania’. (An interesting circumstance is that the Polish deputies, who abstained from voting for independence, voted for this law.) In Sobczak’s opinion, the referendum (formally entitled ‘global survey’) of February 1991, its results and the constitutional law adopted on its basis, had a particular importance for the restoration of the state of Lithuania. Declaring this law meant the termination of ties with the Soviet Union (p. 70). In a formal, legal sense, Sobczak is right. On the other hand, although the referendum and the constitutional act of Vilnius ‘unequivocally’ severed ties with the Soviet Union, Lithuania’s international situation has changed very little ... Undoubtedly, the reader who is interested in the latest history of Lithuanian-Polish relations will find a wide range of interesting insights and observations in Sobczak’s book. It will also be useful to the resear- cher, the professional historian, who is interested in the circumstances of the signing of the declaration between Lithuania and Poland and the international agreement.
Vladas Sirutavičius Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 269–271
Timofey Agarin, A Cat’s Lick. Democratisation and Minority Communities in the Post-Soviet Baltic, Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2010, 379 p. ISBN 978-9042-029-89-7
Quite a lot has been written about the Baltic transformation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Usually the Balts themselves, as well as some Western authors, consider the democratisation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania an example of success. And in fact, institutional reform, the democratisation of the political system, in the Baltic states was suf- ficiently smooth. Political practice confirmed this theoretical finding: all three Baltic countries became members of Western democratic structures, the EU and Nato. True, there is no single answer to the question why the political development of the Baltic states was faster than that of the other post-Soviet neighbours. Progress has been explained in different ways. It is argued that the impact of Western structures and their desire to expand to the east had an influence on the Baltic states’ transforma- tion, their democratisation (as for other Central European countries). On the other hand, the expansion was where the values of those structures, liberal democracy, the free market, had public support. In any case, most authors agree that external and internal factors influenced the successful democratisation. One of these was the national consolidation of the Baltic societies, or, more simply, the more expressed national identity of those societies. This factor was an important premise for the formation of stable democratic political systems. It is true that scholars evaluate the influence of national factor on the processes of democratisation ambiguously. Timofey Agarin assesses the democratisation of the Baltic States critically. In fact, the study is interesting for this alone. According to the author, the democratisation of the Baltic countries was superficial, i.e. the Balts rather successfully adapted the democratic institutions characteristic of the West, but the democratisation of societies, the adoption of Western liberal values essential for the effective, transparent functioning of the political system, was clearly delayed. On the other hand, according to the author, in the Baltic states tension was formed between the formally democratic political institutions and societies, which to a great extent remained closed and influenced by nationalism. By the way, the logic of the interpretation is not new. In a similar manner, the democratisation of Central European countries, including the Baltic States, in the interwar period was interpreted, which as we know was not successful. Authoritarian regimes, whose ideology was based on integral nationalism, replaced the 270 book reviews unstable democracies in practically the whole region. It is also noted that an important factor destabilising the role of democratic political systems was the national tension between the titular nations and the ethnic minorities. In the book, Agarin discusses the democratisation of societies in the context of the relations of the dominant nations and the national minori- ties. The study analyses the relations of Latvians, Estonians and Russian- speakers, as well as Lithuanians-Poles in the perestroika period, i.e. until the restoration of independence, as well as the ethno-policies of the new nation-states. State language policies, the development of citizenship laws and questions on the adaptation of national minorities are discussed in detail. The reader will find in these chapters of the book many useful and valuable materials, as well as interesting insights by the author. Even the occasional minor errors do not diminish the value of the completed study. For example, on p. 77 it is stated that the councils of the Vilnius and Šal- čininkai districts in September 1989 announced not only the creation of a Polish autonomous district, but also raised the demand for the districts’ ‘membership in a Soviet federation as autonomous individual – national units’. At that time, the councils of the districts proclaimed national auto- nomy in the composition of the Lithuanian SSR. Or on p. 86: the Vilnius district was ‘in Poland’s sovereignty’ from 1923 until 1939 and not as stated in the book (from 1919 to 1940.) I will discuss somewhat more broadly several more interesting and important insights of the author from a methodological point of view. According to Agarin, when they were fighting for the liberalisation and democratisation of the Soviet system, some members of ethnic minorities were inclined to cooperate with the Baltic national movements. Similarly, the elites of the titular nations seeking political allies tried to develop re- lations with the national minorities. However, when the democratisation of the system acquired a clear orientation to the restoration of nation-states, and especially after winning independence, the strategy of the majority toward the minorities began to change. The Baltic elites adopted various laws, with the help of which thet tried to dissociate the minorities from national policies, to marginalise them. Among the politicians of the titular nations, the increasingly prevalent belief was that national minorities posed a threat to the national states. However, also among the ethnic minorities, the conviction became ever stronger that the newly formed nation-states, although proclaiming to be democratic, were not, because they did not take into account the needs of the minorities. Between the majority and the minority, there began to form a social separation, which later, with the Balts consolidating their statehood, internal tensions only deepened and became stronger. These circumstances, in the author’s view, testify to the shortage of democracy in the societies of the Baltic States. In essence, one can agree with these conclusions by Agarin: the relations in the Baltic states between the titular nations and the national book reviews 271 minorities remain quite complex. On the other hand, it must be noted that inter-ethnic tensions did not spill over into violent conflicts. And this is evidence of a certain civilised (as well as democratic) quality of the majority and the minority. How does the author answer the question, what factors determined these dynamics in the relations between the titular nations and the national minorities? Agarin provides, in my opinion, a rather interesting inter- pretation. His version is supported in theory by the works of T. Martin, R. Sunny and Y. Slezkin, which analysed the specifics of ethno-federalism in the USSR. So Agarin concludes that the late Soviet ethno-federalism in the Baltic area shaped the separation between the titular nations and the national minorities. Ethno-federalism created the preconditions for the cultural expression of the titular nations, their social mobility, and, ultima- tely, ethnic mobilisation. On the other hand, the model of ethno-federalism not only did not form the conditions for the integration of the national minorities into the culture of the titular nation, but also encouraged their insularity and social-political passivity. In this way, Agarin refutes the widespread belief that the national minorities (in particular, we have in mind Russian speakers) were in corpore a support of the imperial Soviet system. Perestroika policies encouraged the participation of the minorities, but the re-established Baltic nation-states, rejecting the Soviet heritage and practices, preserved the political principle characteristic of Soviet ethno- federalism: the separation of ethnic minorities (pp. 92–93). These are observations worthy of further and deeper study. However, it seems to me that the author ignores another important factor influencing the mutual relations between the titular nations and the national minorities. One cannot ignore the fact that there was another institution organising the Soviet system: the centralised CPSU. The Balts, at least a clear majority of them, perceived the CPSU as an instrument of Russification, posing a threat to their national identity. And the ethnic minorities that formed in the Soviet period in the Baltic States, primarily Russian speakers, were understood as an instrument of the Russification policies. In summary, the study by Timofey Agarin is definitely interesting and valuable, for both its insights and abundance of factual materials. It will interest both scholars studying the ethno-policies of the Baltic States and the more curious reader, for whom this may perhaps be the first book about the relations between the Balts, the titular nations, with the national minorities. Vladas Sirutavičius Lithuanian historical studies 17 2012 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 272–276
Nuo Basanavičiaus, Vytauto Didžiojo iki Molotovo ir Ribbentropo: At- minties ir atminimo kultūrų transformacijos XX–XXI amžiuje, ed. Alvydas Nikžentaitis, Vilnius: Lietuvos istorijos instituto leidykla, 2011, 490 p. ISBN 978-9955-847-37-3
This magisterial volume with the catchy title From Basanavičius, Vytautas the Great to Molotov and Ribbentrop: Transformations of Memory and the Cultures of Remembrance in the 20th–21st Centuries is a long-awaited piece of scholarship in Lithuania. As the editor of the volume Alvydas Nikžentaitis points out in the introduction, Lithuanian historians and sociologists have been engaged for more than a decade in research in a field that could roughly be described as collective memory studies. The primary purpose of this book, therefore, is to bring together some of the key Lithuanian scholars in the area, and to include additional case studies about the development of collective memory politics in several neighbour- ing countries: Russia, Poland and Belarus. The contributors to the volume include both established and young researchers (Edmund Dmitrów, David E. Fishman, Vladas Gaidys, Christoph Klessmann, Dangiras Mačiulis, Alvydas Nikžentaitis, Irena Šutinienė, Rasa Čepaitienė, Aurimas Švedas and Vasilijus Safronovas). The book begins with a thematic section that explores the theoretical frameworks for studying cultural memory, the politics of history, and the culture of commemoration, which is followed by a section with seven contributions that focuses on ‘cultures of memory’ in urban spaces. The third section consists of four chapters that analyse ‘the articulation of memory on the national level’, and two chapters in the fourth section discuss ‘culture and the politics of memory’ in Poland and Russia. The final section is dedicated to a compara- tive approach to the ‘cultures of memory and commemoration’. Limited space makes it impossible to grant each and every chapter (of 18) equal attention; therefore, I will limit my discussion to a few themes that stand out prominently in this collection. The section dedicated to perceptions and uses of narratives about the past in the discourses of inhabitants and urban spaces constitutes a highly welcome contribution to existing studies of national identification in Lithuania. So far, many studies of Lithuanian nationalism have focused on political discourses and literary materials, and in this way have neglected other rich material dimensions, such as city objects, architectural spaces and landscapes. In turn, Lithuanian sociologists and ethnographers have been accumulating research about individual articulations of national and book reviews 273 ethnic belonging; hence, it is rewarding to see the two fields, sociology and history, coming together in the exploration of contemporary uses of the past for the purposes of identification. The chapter by Safronovas on the history of the changing strategies of the nationalisation and domestication of Klaipėda/Memel stands out as an original contribution. Safronovas builds a well-documented case study of nation-building, in a specific urban area, as a conscious and strategic activity pursued by the changing governing bodies of the city. An interest- ing revelation by Safronovas is that the creation of new narratives about Klaipėda’s belonging to Lithuania, as well as the erection of new material objects meant to solidify this belonging, were often driven not by state organisations, but by various social groups. These social groups, however, were able skilfully to anchor their initiatives in formal state organisations. What we know today as Lithuanian Klaipėda, a city with a strong identity as a gateway to the Baltic Sea, is, as shown by Safronovas, a particular assemblage of historical narratives that were chosen selectively by policy entrepreneurs. A striking fact is that this entrepreneurship as an organisa- tional mode was common to both the independent (1923–1939) and Soviet (the 1940s to the 1980s) periods. A similar study by Dangiras Mačiulis explores the articulation of historical narratives in the discursive and material environment of the city of Šiauliai. Unlike Klaipėda, Šiauliai did not have to be made a territory of Lithuanians (although one would wish to hear more about the Jew- ish heritage of the city). However, an interesting element highlighted by Mačiulis was the impact of international relations on the municipal policies aiming to shape the local historical identity of the city: in 1936, a proposal to associate Šiauliai with the famous Battle of Saulė which the Crusaders lost to the Lithuanians in 1236 was rejected, because there was a dispute with Latvia about the actual site of this battle. An interesting fact, writes Mačiulis, is that the association of Šiauliai with the Battle of Saulė was revived in the early 1970s, and since then has become an important axis for urban identification. Although the Jewish legacy is little discussed in the chapters on Šiauliai and Klaipėda, this important subject is surveyed in the essay by David E. Fishman, who attempts to assess the possible strategies for mak- ing Jewish history more visible in Vilnius. The author insightfully notes that traditional commemorational techniques, such as putting up memorial plaques, or even rebuilding an architectural structure, can hardly do justice to the complex and painful history of the Jews of Vilnius. While agree- ing with this observation, I would just like to add that the contemporary repertoire of urban interventions need not be limited to installing memo- rial plaques and putting up signs: a combination of virtual and physical realities, and joint projects with contemporary artists and designers, may lead to more convincing and appropriate solutions. 274 book reviews Among the many intriguing insights that the volume offers are the findings derived from the in-depth interviews done by Irena Šutinienė, which reveal the fluidity of historical contexts in the individual narratives of belonging to the cities of Klaipėda and Vilnius. On the basis of her study of semi-structured qualitative interviews, Šutinienė concludes that the citizens interviewed always mobilised the historical narratives of their ethnic belonging to Lithuanian, German, Russian and Polish communities in a partial way; no less important for the informants were the personal histories of their families, and even the material histories of the urban spaces where they lived. A similarly specific sense of ethnic and political belonging to the nation is hinted at by quantitative surveys, discussed in the chapters by Šutinienė and Gaidys. These surveys, which measured the perceptions by Lithuania’s inhabitants of historical events, also hint at the elasticity of identity and changes in attitudes that are seen as milestones for national identification: for example, the negative evaluation of Poland has been declining. Another example was provided by a random sample survey that posed the open question about which historical events were considered as the most important by the respondents. According to Gaidys, the answers, on one hand, revealed an expected self-centredness, with respondents concentrating on national events: in a survey done in 2009, the most often-mentioned event is the regaining of independence (both by Lithuanian and Russian respondents). On the other hand, this survey has produced results that disagree with the common interpretations of the hegemonic narratives of the Lithuanian past. First, the Second World War came up second as the most important historical event in the accounts of both Lithuanian and Russian respondents. Another rather surprising finding was that the Soviet deportations did not rank highly at all in the answers given by Lithuanian respondents. These results make one wonder about the validity of the popular argument that ethnic Lithuanians have a mar- tyrological view of their past, and may lead one to ask if martyrology is not a discursive strategy which is used only by specific groups. The relational character of the personal and political uses of the past made it important to include studies of the processes in Russia and Belarus; here, the often incompatible ways of interpreting the Second World War are discussed in further chapters by Safronovas and Nikžentaitis. A rather brief article by Dmitrów points to the persistence of the martyrological perspective in the Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian accounts of those tragic events; and the chapter by Švedas gives a well-informed overview of the uses of historical narratives in the search for a new discourse of Russian statehood. Finally, Nikžentaitis argues for the need to explore the uses of historical narratives in international relations and foreign policy; this is certainly an important field for studies of political uses of the past. I would like to reserve the remaining space for a few comments on the binding academic rationale of the volume. It seems that ‘collective memory’ book reviews 275 performs several important functions in Lithuanian historiography: it works, first and foremost, as an umbrella concept that effectively legitimises a constructionist approach to historical research. This is something that is acknowledged by the contributors themselves (see Nikžentaitis, Klessman, and also Safronovas). Having labelled their research as ‘memory studies’, historians seem to be able to liberate themselves from positivist and ethno- centric historiography, and the plurality of historical narratives seems to be more easily accommodated. ‘Memory studies’, in this way, seem to facilitate the transformation of a significant part of Lithuanian historiog- raphy in a way that post-structuralist approaches, such as, for example, Michel Foucault’s ideas about power/knowledge, are not able to deliver. The problem with the umbrella of memory studies is that this more pluralist and relational view of Lithuania’s history has come at the cost of methodological rigour. For example, having presented an exhaustive exploration of several approaches to memory studies, Safronovas also published a highly interesting and informative chapter about Klaipėda’s domestication, in which the concept of ‘memory’ does not really add much to his otherwise excellent reconstruction of the engineering of political and cultural discourses of political belonging in the city of Klaipėda. In other contributions, the concept of memory is used to redress the classic cultural histories of nationalism: here, the chapter about national monuments and urban spaces in Kaunas by Mačiulis is a good example. Mačiulis has writ- ten a lot about interwar Lithuanian cultural policy; moreover, the cultural articulations of ethnic nationalism in interwar Kaunas have been studied in detail by the art historian Giedrė Jankevičiūtė. Labelling interwar national- ist cultural policies as attempts at creating a collective memory does not add very much to existing academic knowledge about cultural policies and national symbols in that period. A similar point can be made in relation to Šutinienė’s contribution on surveys of national narratives: sociologists already have adequate and well-developed theoretical tools to study social identification in the urban space, such as the theories of social categorisa- tion, discourse, framing and material performativity. There is hardly an academic need to label the findings as an expression of collective memory, something that is well illustrated by the contribution, which, in my view, shows that the history of urbanism in Vilnius and Minsk does not gain that much by being approached through the problematic of collective memory. However, as several contributors to the volume note, memory studies bring not only an academic, but also a political rationale to the work of the historian. Although theoretically and methodologically quite well developed, post-structuralism, understandably, has little appeal to the clients and spon- sors of research. The word ‘memory’ is so much more approachable than ‘discourse’. Furthermore, the rising populist politicians of the left and the right appear to have a firm belief in ‘memory’ as a new political currency. It is quite probable that the willingness of state governments, not only 276 book reviews Lithuanian or East European, but also West European ones, to fund memory studies generously stems from populist roots. It is important, therefore, for academic memory studies to go beyond the stage of typology (social, political, communicative and other types of memory), and engage critically with the very rationale of this type of research. Otherwise, the spectre of collective memory will continue haunting Europe, West and East alike. In all, the book is very timely, and constitutes a milestone in contem- porary history writing in Lithuania. As is the case with many collections, some tighter editing would have benefitted the volume: Fishman’s chapter lacks references, and the fact that almost every chapter begins with a theoretical introduction to memory studies creates unnecessary repetitive- ness. These are, however, minor quibbles. The book is certainly a valuable resource for researchers and students alike; it will also, hopefully, reach out to wider audiences beyond academia. Eglė Rindzevičiūtė